There is nothing like getting out in the real world to gain real perspective relative to what is really going on in with the economy across Texas.

I am in Day two of the second round of regional meetings with chief executive officers and other senior personnel of community banks.  IBAT Chairman Milton McGee and I will see over 625 bankers in Austin, Shiner, Corpus Christi, Houston, the Rio Grande Valley, Longview, Sulphur Springs and Dallas this week.

I have to tell you I sense an incredible spirit of optimism about the financial events of the day despite the constant media battering that continues to spread a word of doom and gloom and pessimism.  True, it is not all Pollyanna… but community bankers have seen this all before having lived the hard times of late 1980’s which fell disproportionately on our great State.

What’s different this time is the diversification of the Texas economy.  We are not reeling from hyper-inflated real estate values and energy prices, and agriculture meltdowns. There is clearly a softening of credit demand, but community banks in Texas are liquid and ready to lend and help their customers through these challenging times.  We don’t need the government to tell us to lend.  Community bankers do it intuitively as they know they must do to leverage their resources and generate a decent return for their shareholders.

Everyone acknowledges that there will be bumps along the way.  But community bankers have always had one strategic competitive advantage over their mega bank competition…they know their customers and their communities.  If there is pessimism and anxiousness, community bankers fear the backlash of bad laws and government overreaction to fix everything by imposing new levels of regulation that will do nothing but stifle their ability to do what they do best…serve the customer.

I’m confident that community bankers will lead the recovery if government will just get out of their way.  That’s the message we are hearing and so it is our responsibility to spread the good word of optimism and hope.

And so we shall.