What caused the crisis?

I have never heard of risk management being discussed on a daily basis in regular conversation. The only way I hear is talked about is when I am trying to explain my major to people who do not know what Actuarial Science is. To my surprise, I heard risk management brought up in conversation on Thursday before Spring Break. I gave a speech for scholar's day to persuade prospective scholarship recipients to choose Georgia State. After I spoke, President Becker gave a speech as well and happened to come across the current crisis. He was talked about our renowned risk management program at GSU and how they have grown from a small program to one of the most well known and successful programs in the United States. Georgia State is a large research university and the professors participate in research as well.

Here is part of the risk management website to find all the accomplishments of GSU and all the RMI professors' published work.

http://robinson.gsu.edu/news/99/rmi_ranking.html


President Becker continued with the thought that before the crisis, not many people thought of risk management as a major or profession. Now with the crisis, we see that risk management is the problem. I started to get a little frustrated with the statement since we have discussed in class that risk management is key to maximizing profits when done correctly. Therefore, risk management is not the problem, it is people and companies that think they can do without risk management or do so much management that they have negative profits. To my delight, President Becker continues with, "the lack of risk management, I should say, is the problem." I find this much better because now people realize they need to take risk management seriously.