The Perfect Economic Storm

It is exciting to be able to offer people a solution and hope during all of the economic fireworks and turbulence. The timing has never been better to build businesses because we have people's attention and we have a solution. We are building the economy of the future by establishing our own sub economy and ecosystem, using our collective buying power and marketing plan.

In any economic crisis, the deck of cards that everyone has gets reshuffled. If you don't like the hand you have been dealt, it offers a chance to do better. If you have a good hand, you need to know how to protect your position and hold onto the cards you want. There is still an opportunity to gain better cards from the reshuffle. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the economic climate, what some of the causes and effects are, some of the opportunities, and how you can actually benefit from this.

"While some see a crisis, I see an opportunity. This is an opportunity to grow like never before."

The economic turmoil has been appropriately referred to as the perfect economic storm. In other words, different or separate economic problems or storms are converging together at the same time to create a much more powerful storm. Let's look at the storms, the results, and evaluate each…

Storm 1: The rising cost of gas and fuel, causing price escalation in all areas of travel and commerce. Some say we are running out of oil and do not have time to find alternative sources. And that is why the prices will continue to increase to a point where the economy crashes.

Storm 2: Jobs and job security is on everyone's mind. Because of the sluggish economy, there are fewer jobs and unemployment will continue to rise. Combine that with the credit crunch and stock market slump, and there will be many mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies resulting in many people with secure jobs being eliminated from the workforce.

Storm 3: The real estate market is depressed, the mortgage market is frozen, and Wall Street and the stock market have failed. They had to be bailed out by the government to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Storm 4: Consumer spending is down, because people don't have any money, and many businesses will close up as a result.OK, let's evaluate each — looking at the cause and effect, and how this reshuffles the cards. Behind every problem and crisis is the seed for an equal or greater opportunity.

History has proven that repeatedly. In discussing this — bear in mind a couple laws of life or of the universe. All bubbles eventually burst when they over-expand. The economy and the markets that make it up are really an ecosystem with an equilibrium equation. When things get out of whack they will always adjust and come back into balance over time. The important thing is to anticipate and take advantage of the direction of change.

It is a shadow, not the final reality. Behind these challenges at hand is the opportunity to leverage it to greater success, regardless of what has happened in the markets or your own portfolio. To do nothing is to be the effect and to be swept away by circumstance. That is not a smart thing to do. People need to be around positive, forward-looking, and solution-oriented opportunist… not defeatist. Life will go on.

~excerpted from JR Ridinger