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As I said in 2009, in a piece for CEO READ when my now bestselling business book was published, LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), this is not a recession that we are experiencing, but a reset.  A global reset of everything.

My friend Robert Gnaidza, Esq, then general counsel of the Greenlining Coalition, and I published an Op-Ed in the American Banker in May, 2005, predicting a coming mortgage crisis set in motiong by irresponsible adjustable rate mortgage loans. It was called "How The Coming ARMs Race Could Set Off Next Wave of Foreclosures."  

In 2009, my piece entitled Change This — The World on Reset called for a global reset, and if you caught the news this week that the famed New Orleans Times Picayune Newspaper will limit newspaper printing to three times a week for the first time ever.  You will see other newspapers follow suit.  You will also see in the not so distant future that the U.S. Postal Service will seek to limit its service structure, pulling back from six-day a week postal delivery.  What's happening in Greece in particular, and Europe in general, is part of this global reset.  And there will be other examples.

Not all of these changes will be negative. If we work it right, most of the outcomes will actually be positive moving forward.The mortgage crisis that Bob Gnaizda and I called out even before it began in May, 2005, today is actually creating new pathways to responsible, affordable in-city homeownership for average American workers.  Just yesterday I recievewd a call from a good friend who Operation HOPE, Wells Fargo and Invest Atlanta are together helping to purchase his first home — a new condominium — in downtown Atlanta.  His purchase price?  A whopping $68,000.00. This same condo would have cost him $200,000 or more 5-years ago.  This gentleman, a long-time employee of Delta Airlines, wil become a new homeowner and part of the homeownership class and a new taxpayer for Greater Atlanta, in part because of this crisis, and this reset.

It just goes to prove that "rainbows do come after storms."  That you cannot have a rainbow, without a storm first.  Stay tuned for the opportunity present in the midst of this crissi.  After all, I said reset, not reboot.

Okay, let's go.

 

John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass) the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama.  Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum. 

 

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