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In the long run, the financial escapades and dishonorable behavior of some local businessmen are a much bigger concern for Central Iowa than any recession.

As lawsuits pile up regarding a few prominent builders and developers, our innocence drains away. We’ve always liked to shake our head at the way business is conducted in big cities and congratulate ourselves for retaining a wholesome, honest approach.

We came here from farms and small towns, having learned that you must treat everyone with respect. We thought the Golden Rule was a given.

In the past 18 months or so, it has become obvious that business was not being conducted that way by many of the people we revered as success stories.

Maybe the insiders knew all along who was honorable and who wasn’t. But an awful lot of players in the real estate game have absorbed collateral damage, so lenders either weren’t in on the rules or made some bad assumptions about how long the game would last.

Just as the nation is stunned by the audacity of big-time chiselers like Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford, Central Iowans grapple with the idea that local business people – likable, friendly folks you see at basketball games and restaurants – appear to have been just as selfish and devious as those villains. On a smaller scale, fortunately.

When the economy was booming along, it was relatively easy to make a big splash here. A builder just had to be confident and bold. He had to charm 20 or 30 lenders instead of one or two, but he could, because they all wanted to believe in good faith and a limitless future.

Now we all have to settle the tab.

Big slabs of ruined dreams soon will go on the auction block all at once, pouring glue into the gears of our economy. We’ll clean up the mess and move forward.

We just won’t be quite as trusting from now on. We’re not turning into Chicago, but we can’t pretend to be Mayberry anymore, either.