Creative lending … for creative business?

The Federal Reserve seems to be getting inventive in its efforts to save the economy. Dropping interest rates essentially to zero, churning out money - if these tactics have the desired effect on lending and spending, a lot of companies will be able to get loans to pay for crucial equipment, supplies, hires and the other necessities of staying solvent and competitive.  

But I hope lenders will support something besides huge, established corporations and technology start-ups with billion-dollar potentials.  I hope they’ll invest in tiny creative start-ups that will improve individual lives, neighborhoods and communities by building a diverse, grassroots economy.

I hope this not just because the era of heartless, own-everything megaconglomerates needs to be over, taking its totalitarian economy of unchecked executive greed, crushed competition, boring homogeneity and feudal resource and power systems with it. I hope this because the reimagined world we need, with new solutions to our entrenched problems and fresh ideas and creative marvels to inspire us all, will come from individual visionaries who begin changing the world from their garages and spare rooms with nothing but their own brains and hands.

They’ll have little collateral to offer. Their creations could turn out to be the next microchip, “Harry Potter” series, miracle drug or global snack craze – or remain just an enjoyed and enriching part of local life. Either way, they’ll be worth the investment.  

As the United Negro College Fund points out, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Or, as Dan Quayle had it, what a waste it is to lose one’s mind.

I suspect one thing leads to the other.

That’s why I hope the Fed’s efforts save our nation and our sanity by putting new money where America’s potential really lies – in its people of imagination, talent and determination. They’ll pay us all back.