MCC Students Up For the (Fed) Challenge!

It might seem as though the news about the economy can't get any gloomier, but for our national leaders looking for solutions to fix the bleed, apparently they need look no further than MCC!  Not to make a Federal case out of it or anything, but a bevy of MCC's best has just proven they've got some answers to the economic problems, and now they've got the credentials to back them up!

First off, a big standing ovation for Damian Gray of Methuen, Adam Nichols of Tewksbury, Ben Blieden of Lexington, Scot Weisman of Pelham, N.H., Robert Searle of Billerica, and Justin Durso of Billerica!  These are the MCC students, some of whom are in our Business and Economics Club, who recently competed in the Federal Reserve Bank's annual College Fed Challenge Competition.

The students, with the help of their faculty members, competed against other community colleges from throughout New England in the early rounds and then from New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in the final round.  When the economic dust settled, MCC was declared the community college National Champions!

If economics makes your head hurt, grab some Tylenol, because here's how the MCC students scored the big W:  the students were asked to provide an analysis of current national economic conditions, a forecast of economic, financial and international conditions relative to monetary policy, a discussion of significant risks to the economy, and a recommendation as to whether or not the Federal Reserve System should increase, decrease, or take no action with regard to short term interest rates.

The MCC team recommended keeping the Federal Funds Target rate at its present rate of one percent.  Most impressive, though, was the team's innovative "Asset Backed Lending Exchange Program."  Team members said that commercial banks would be more likely to lend to businesses if their risks in this troubled economy were minimized by some backing from the Federal Reserve.  The team recommended that the Fed consider a program where small businesses pledge assets to the Treasury, who would use these assets as collateral and issue debt obligations in the form of Treasury Bills to generate cash to be infused into the lending system.  The Fed would then purchase these T-bills and make low interest, low risk funding available to commercial banks who would be stimulated to make loans to small businesses as the Fed would be assuming some of the risk of these loans.  Whew!

Now, for the record, if you see some hybrid of the Asset Backed Lending Exchange Program rolled out in Washington in the coming weeks, you can say you know where they got the idea!

Obviously, credit goes to the business faculty behind these students, so pique your interest points for Robert Kaulfuss, Robert Awkward, and John Femia, not to mention Business, Engineering and Technology Dean Judy Hogan!