The kitchen table consensus is that greed caused the ongoing financial crisis. The universality of greed undermines the value, if not the accuracy of this diagnosis. Greed is such a broad term that it almost defies definition. Like all vice, greed is more easily detected in another person than in ...

As most of you know, we have agreed to purchase the four Anchor Bank branches in Brown County.  We are trying to assimilate the branches in 73 days.  Pretty aggressive, but doable in our opinion.  As we walk through this transition, I thought it would be interesting to blog a ...

I am frequently asked to comment on the Goldman Sachs controversy and the pending financial reform legislation. The legal discussion about Goldman seems to center on whether Goldman had a conflict of interest. Goldman doesn’t HAVE a conflict of interest. Goldman IS a conflict of interest. They are not unique among ...

CNN ran a hard hitting series last week on “Broken Government”.  Since advertising funds broadcast content it is a good window into the mind of the audience.  In this case, it was free credit reports, sleep aids and retirement plans. People are clearly having trouble sleeping. They are worried about ...

When you sober up from your Scott Brown parties, please listen to the President’s surprisingly clear position on banking and the financial markets. My last blog accused Obama of political cynicism for pretending to get after the Wall Street bankers who heavily supported his election. My prediction was that he ...

President Obama called the CEOs of the nation’s twenty largest banks into the White House in early December and directed them to make loans. He also warned them not to resist his plan for financial industry “reform”. Regular readers know that I am a pretty shameless Midwest populist. I have ...

The FDIC third quarter data shows bank loans down three percent nationwide. This has touched off another round of discussion about why banks aren't lending. There are three important points to grasp. 1. Bank loans are down because they should be down. The vast majority of our loans are to healthy well-managed ...

One of our cultural mantras at Nicolet is that you don’t get fired for making mistakes, you do get fired for burying them. In good times even our bad decisions tend to turn out okay. Most of the time, a bad decision is one you merely have to undo. As country music ...

I was heartened to see that our Business Pulse participants are feeling more optimistic about 2010.  Sentiment about the future is a very important determinant of the future.  We do see the monthly financial statements ...

This is the time of year when most businesses plan for the next calendar year. We just completed a half day board retreat. I will offer you a peek inside our heads in the event it aids your thinking for 2010. In recent weeks we are hearing a fair amount ...