The Profit Factor

It’s 1979 and Jimmy Carter’s administration is seeing 21%% interest rates. In the city of Sacramento, California, Gary Greb labors as a union carpenter but with a wife and two toddlers to support-and, as new construction is all but non-existent, he tries real estate sales; putting his knowledge of construction techniques and land-use to bolster his earnings, He quickly finds that one group-the excessively wealthy-are totally unfazed by the recessionary times and when he finds an engineer, with ties to people with unlimited funds, who will buy any piece of land at any reasonable price-for cash-he begins a career that will ultimately land him in prison, as well as turn him from the working class into a part of the wealthy landowners-a class he has come to disdain, distrust and dislike. If you never lived through these times in the 1970’s and 80’s, take heed and scrutinize today’s headlines and economy and remember history has a way of repeating itself-and God only knows when the cycle will begin to spin again.