Our Blog

The sky is falling.  The economy is failing. Capitalism is grinding to a halt in the U.S.   The redcoats are coming, and they’re bringing The Fed, the CFPA, Big Insurance, Nancy Pelosi and a few tax collectors with them.

Ok, it’s not that bad.  But there’s another trend bubbling not too far beneath the surface lately, and it was touched upon well in an article by Peter Peterson this week in BusinessWeek.

We’ve lost something in the way the typical American business interacts with the community.  I’m not speaking of every business leader, of course.  There are many good ones.  But I sense a culture that starts and ends with the stockholder (or, another of my favorite PR clichés:  “the stakeholder.”).  Short term profits and risk aversion are the order of the day (forgetting for the moment the whole MBS/subprime thing).  Lawyers and accountants set the parameters.  As a result, there’s never been a worse time to be a “businessman.”  “Corporate-speak” is a term of derision, usually implying some sort of dishonesty. 

Maybe I’m being overly simple, as I’m prone to do from time to time in my little blog.  But wouldn’t it be nice to see a few more leaders in the business community who actually carry their roles into the rest of the community?  Wouldn’t it be nice to hear more stories about CEOs or chairmen who take a longer view than next quarter’s profits?  Wouldn’t it be nice to hear about a few leaders from the private sector who get that they have a greater responsibility?  Who are willing to take a stand on something?

Is that a little unfair?  Perhaps.  Am I painting with too broad a brush?  You make the call.  But I’m calling on more leaders of businesses large and small to begin to recognize that the world does go on beyond next quarter’s numbers.  For everyone.  There are always consequences for bad decisions, or worse, bad intentions.

I call on the leaders of the title and mortgage industry to be a part of this.  I have a lot of respect for this industry.  However, by its very nature, this is a fairly secretive group.  And why not?  Nobody’s really sure exactly how many agencies, czars, or state governments really regulate the bunch—but it’s a lot.  There are quite a few snakes in the weeds, awaiting a misstep.  If I were corporate counsel, I’d advise staying low at all times too.

But I also really believe that a tremendous amount of damage is being done to the mortgage industry right now, and not just by the stories of ultra short-term decision-making and phantom underwriting.  The silence from this quarter when it comes to the consumer is deafening, leaving those with no love (or understanding of) for the industry to write its story.

Who knows what I know?  But if it were up to me, we’d be out in front of the consumer right now.  We would be explaining from the rooftops why title insurance is important.  We would be taking a moment or ten to detail the mortgage process.  We would be rewarding the good actors in the space and publicly flogging the bad apples.  We would be scrubbing the stains, knocking down the walls and opening every window in the proverbial place to let a little sunshine in.  Why not show people that the industry has nothing to hide?

At least then, the industry wouldn’t be held hostage by legislators and regulators, many of whom can only spell “mortgage” with the help of staffers.  At least then, we might have a voice in the argument.