QUESTION
Major newsmagazines, US domestic and global, online or print, ranging from Strategy+Business to Knowledge@Wharton, Financial Times (U.K.), and The WSJ , carry major economic news items of current global interest across industries and sectors. Pick ANY ONE of these news that has major economic ramifications on the general economy, specific sector or industry, and discuss, using sound economic reasoning (logic or analytics), how a highly effective (highly trained, well-informed and exceptionally competent) business executive would navigate the difficult socio-political and economic terrain(s) that are vast in order to optimize the short and long run value of the enterprise. Think ‘inside’ and ‘out’ of the box.
RESPONSE
Unfortunately, as of late, the declining housing market has become a common story of the daily news. And because of the mortgage and finance configuration, there is a strong possibility that the U.S. ever-collapsing housing market may soon be the cause of a worldwide financial catastrophe. Due to the fact that the different segments of business industries are interrelated and to a large part, dependent upon one another, the consequences of the declining housing market is negatively affecting other financial institutions in America and even other places in the world, e.g. Europe.
The current financial pressures have been a long time coming. According to the Financial Times, they were first initiated in the early 1900s and started to grow at a constant rate as late as 2006. Housing experts and researchers predicted that if the trend continued that the U.S. would eventually find itself in a bad housing situation, economically speaking. During th ...