At the risk of sounding like an overzealous contrarian or simply in denial, I continue to posit that the current economic turmoil is the greatest long-term opportunity that this country and the world have seen since the Industrial Revolution. However this time instead of water wheels and the steam engine, we are talking about electric cars, alternative energy and clean energy, just to name a few innovations.

In somewhat eerie irony, the internal combustion engine, one of the primary drivers of the Industrial Revolution, is going the way of the buggy whip. Quite frankly, you really shouldn't be that surprised. The awesome changes over the last two decades of how business is conducted, with huge and continuing gains in productivity and information share had to have some kind of social and commercial consequence. Nothing happens in a vacuum. So instead of child labor laws and unionization, the focus is on universal healthcare and socially responsible business. Regardless of your position on all of these initiatives (and I am not offering one here), I think we can all agree that the current momentum in the United States is for change.

However, I'm not sure the word change is what we are talking about here. My word for it is upgrade. I think we are experiencing the Great American Upgrade. Rightly or wrongly, it looks like our roads, bridges and various elements of infrastructure are about to get major upgrades via a one Trillion (yes with a capital T) economic stimulus package (again I am not offering an opinion on this). As an aside, has anyone else noticed that the Government is now borrowing money at 0% these days? The 30-year is around 3%.

Let me repeat that. The risk-free rate at which the government is borrowing money is somewhere between 0% and 3%. We are likely to pay for this in the form of massive inflation, but in the short term the U.S. Government has access to all the cash it needs at historically low rates. Let's just hope that we are not swapping a mortgage bubble for a Fed bubble. That would be very bad indeed.

The car industry is about to get an upgrade to clean, efficient and alternative energy sources. I like to think that we here at the Receivables Exchange are doing our part to upgrade the commercial finance options available to small and midsize businesses. Then, you have biomedical advancements that are mind boggling. While I am not even a knowledgeable layman in this segment of our economy, as a casual observer, it seems to me that the pace of innovation in the biomedical sciences (genomics, etc.) is only accelerating.

Everywhere you look, innovation and breakthrough is the norm. It makes me wonder if we should even call breakthroughs, breakthroughs anymore.  That said, this is going to be one hell of a ride over the next 5 to 10 years. Most importantly, unlike the Industrial Revolution, information share is instantaneous and ubiquitous, which serves as an accelerator for innovation. For the record, I am not suggesting that this upgrading process is going to be enjoyable. The current  and constant economic turmoil is exhausting. Some of the greatest businesspeople I know seem distraught and defeated in this environment.

 However, some things never change, like the annual return of the holiday season. So during this time of uncertainty, upheaval and perhaps permanent change, we get to enjoy, albeit briefly, some of the few constants that surround us.

Nic Perkin is co-founder and President of The Receivables Exchange. The Exchange is the world's first online marketplace for real-time trading of accounts receivable.