The vast majority of those are small community holding companies that converted largely in an effort to take advantage of the insurance agency provisions of the GLB Act or to be well positioned should opportunities for exercising new powers present themselves.
The nation needs a model for economic growth that will generate innovation and productivity enhancements that will, in turn, generate the kinds of jobs for which we hope we are educating and training our people. For much of the past decade, the implicit growth model was too heavily dependent on the assumption of ever-rising home prices.