Mr Cahan began his speech by explaining social entrepreneurship as:
- A career
- Using Ethical Values
- Taking Action
- Listening
He said that we all have the choice of deciding who we are. The choices include culture, religion, physical characteristics, etc.
He reviewed the historic ways that the economic systems allocate wealth in society: Exchange supported by market rules, redistribution of resources administrated by the Government, and reciprocity or gift exchanges. He said that nowadays 95% of the existing money of the world is not in cash, but consists of loans or other financial instruments created and held by banks and other institutions.
Mr. Cahan then spoke about the credit crisis: He showed that home prices and value of bank stocks were directly related. He gave a partial analysis of the crunch by explaining what he called “The bankers’ version of the prisoner dilemma” that student learn in Economics Class: If one bank sells a package of loans to another one, without telling the second bank of the potential problems with those assets, the first bank has the chance to either receive a profit of $6 or $0, rather than being assured the profit of $4 from fully-disclosed due diligence, the transactional information transparency would require. For the banking system as a whole, having each of two banks (the buyer and seller of the loan portfolio in this example) each earn a $4 profit (totaling $8), is preferable to one bank receiving $6 for selling assets with undisclosed known risks and the buyer of those assets receiving $0 or losing money on holding the assets. This is the cause of financial bubbles. And this emphasizes the need for transparency.
Illustrating the financial losses of the 2008 Credit Crisis, Mr. Cahan cited the figures of the number of US banks that had closed (25 in 2008 and 106 so far in 2009), the US 10% unemployment rate and other statistics. 2008 was both a financial and ethical disaster in the US, including:
- Banks and AIG using US government bailout money for partying, paying bonuses, acquiring competitors, reducing consumer and small business lending, etc,
- Car companies seeking help in DC, while their CEOs jetted into DC on private corporate jets.
- Bernard Madoff’s multi-billion Ponzi scheme that inflicted massive losses and destroyed Jewish families, foundations and organizations.
Referencing the Madoff Affair, Mr. Cahan shared his own struggle as a Jew to make sense of it, and shared his discovery of a wide basis of Jewish business ethical teachings in the Bible. Mr. Cahan urged all religious faiths and indigenous cultures to review their ethical business precepts, and for purposes of specific teachings shared what he had learned as common ethical business roots:
-Man was placed on earth to work and protect it (Genesis): The concept of sustainability is not new.
-Thou shalt not steal.
-Competition must be fair.
9.55 - Manuel Aguirre, 
Then he continues saying: “I was listening to the previous speakers, and I… I lived in a different world!!!”. He follows with: “Why? stupid bankers and economist, that is true” But he adds: “Government interfere in the economy, with Taxes, Regulation, and inflation of the currency”. He explains it is “crazy” to think that Government is going to solve our problems if they have creat them.
