Looking around at the massive scramble by investors, incubators, VC funds, home offices to sell off their leaking assets in the name of the crisis I began to wonder if "the crisis" wasn't just a good excuse to dump poor investments and not get fired for it ?

Logically this would break down into two reasons for termination:

(1) The initial investment decision was based upon poor judgement or (2) The investment was poorly managed

So what better way to get out of a sticky situation and save face than blaming it on "the crisis"?

With this thought in mind I decided to substantially increase the IQ applied to my initial question by talking to some of my illuminated friends like Ricard de Querol in order to shed some light.

The part of the conversation I actually understood went something like this: "ahhh, yes, yes, lets see. If the crisis was due to the default of sub-prime loans then 200-300 billion would suffice to plug the whole. The fact that the loans were re-packaged and further loans were extended in order to purchase these by now leveraged parcels effectively created a pyramid effect and so the several trillion required to fill the gap could be right.".

"But would that explain the crisis and the sell off of so many investment assets?", I asked.

"errrmmm, no it wouldn't but then who said the crisis was due to the sub-prime disaster in the first place? What about the effect of the heated Chinese economy, the rocketing oil and rice prices, ......, ....."

I decided to return to my pew to think about the by now several "businesses for sale" files sitting on my desk.................... then those I know struggling, desperately ............ and a few that are still doing well......

Some of them are clearly struggling because sales plummeted but mostly they will survive to see another day. As for the rest they would have died anyway because at least 1 or more of "Clem's golden conditions" did not exist: (1) Right product; (2) Right time; (3) Right place; (4) Right team.

So I conclude by asking you the same question:

Is the crisis just an accelerator and a very convenient excuse for not having to admit failure?