Crisis, business and debt.

We live in an era of the intangible. While the crisis we are now experiencing also stems from something intangible. It is curious how things have changed. When we think about what happened (and happens) in the U.S. with the sadly famous junk mortgages (subprime), we concluded that the giant bubble that has been forming in the last years and that has caused the current situation is one of its epicenters in the value of the financial system has given a absolutely something intangible: the debt.

 We have moved the value of what is the value of what they do not have. In fact, a mortgage is nothing more than someone’s debt, a debt taken on to acquire a building. A debt means that someone has to return money that has given him another one, for that refund have more time, even long time, provided that what we end up giving back is much more of what he was given. So, who is mortgaged, or the debtor becomes a long-term customer who lent him the money.

We could say, in a way that is not the debt where the value lies, but on the client. But in this case that would be a vast understatement because this customer (who are the vast majority of whom most of us because the less I live with a mortgage) is subjected to a forced loyalty plan that, if he could have, would not have chosen. The link between customer financing provider is on the one hand and the need for a further lack of alternative, so that even if does not sound good, the true value is given to the debt, not the client.

The debt runs the financial system and business structure in an extremely unstable, and instability there comes a moment ago that the structure shaken up the critical point of overcoming resistance and do it all collapse. Too much tension causes a crack. Pure physics. Pure logic. Common sense … you know, the less common sense.

But, much as this crisis arises from something as intangible as debt, its consequences that it is tangible. Businesses that fall, closing businesses, people who lose their jobs, wealth that is lost. All this and much more are the results we see and touch every day. In addition, the Stock Exchanges around the world have become schizophrenic and falls, slight recoveries, desplones new and uncertain future are our daily bread Have you lost dignity in the way we do business?, A big business we are talking Is everything has become so speculative that ambition goes above everything else? Have we lost the sense of ethics in the way we do business? We want to be confident that no, but reality shows that something of all this has been forgotten.

Business crisis, money. Everyone more virtual than the previous Could it be that the economy and the financial sitemas not bear much virtuality? Virtuality so much and so many cases not met: loans made to generate debt backed by properties that were supposed to, they would never lose value so if the dedudor could not pay, the creditor is a building that was worth more money than when it was purchased and the lender always wins … and it is not. It turns out that have been built to houses so many people there are not enough to live because, after all, nor do we buy a new house every year and there is no need or money to cope with a cost so high. Therefore there comes a time when the constructor has no more money to continue building, the bank has no money to continue to provide and the debtor has no money to continue paying, and it’s Crack. The system assigns. Too much stress. Too many of course not met.

Any virtual excessively in the negative sense of the word. Virtual because this whole operation of the system has been based on assumptions that no one in front with two fingers had been believed. And that is what we have believed all of us. Or all we have assumed and we have participated. Or the majority of banks, financial institutions and insurers throughout the groups have muyndo fact, which is the same.

Ah, then Will something or someone to the crisis? Of course. Sure. Many survive, should have learned, have been fast, smart and cautious. Many will be, we will have learned. And we will proceed.

• The success of companies after a time of crisis, or are companies that come from the previous period and have either supported the change and adapt to the new ecosystem, or are start-ups but whose talent comes from the accumulated experience and observed in enterprises of the previous era.
• The companies that lead after a time of change are those that have learned from the crisis, not the old schemes that denies knowing that only lead to failure.
• Companies that are strengthened after the chaos are the ones that follow the market and understand that people do not change the overnight dramatically. There is no social or economic transformation that is so explosive, everything takes time to adapt. Companies that offer good results in unstable environments are those that do not make the mistake of thinking that a market is large or is not ripe when it is neither. Are those that do not make bets impossible or create unfounded assumptions.
• Companies with meteoric growth are enormous predisposition to the equally meteoric fall, and therefore a thing as another cause tremendous trauma.

We are in the Age 2.0, it is true, businesses also evolve towards that 2.0, right. But that does not mean that everything becomes smoke, or that production systems are no longer necessary, nor that the primary and secondary sectors are obsolete and unserviceable and that the future is only in the tertiary, in services, and yet beyond that, in content, in pure knowledge, in the virtual ether. No.

Behind every business and every expectation there must be a reality. If you offer a product must be able to manufacture it, serve, maintain and restore. If you offer a service must offer guarantees, attention and problem solving. If you have a business, must respond to what your business offers. The promises on promises remain virtual smoke, or anything. The “anything” does not generate wealth, not fueling the economy, we can not pay the mortgage and it is not sufficient to pay the purchase in the supermarket.

And, finally, of course, all this is just a matter of money. The money, which is much more so than the Virtual Business 2.0 and 3.0 the crisis. Money is a concept, a metaphor, an illusion that we have enshrined in paper and plastic cards to make us look real. But it is not.

We could dwell on this item to fall from exhaustion. No lo vamos a hacer. We are not going to do. Just finally, a simple thought: if all is smoke, if all of we sell smoke, we will have to make a very big bonfire to generate much smoke, and end up burning.

This is a very interesting and informative video lasts about 10 minutes. In fact is an excerpt from the original (which lasts 47 minutes) “The money as debt” and weinvite you to see if you have a little more time, it is worth.