With bankers and financiers allocating funding to homebuilding, financial services, and new economy startups, many previous stalwart old economy businesses wither and die. Previous successful machinists and craftsmen close down their shops, some taking sales jobs at the new malls and restaurants. Others set up digs in one of several flashy new office buildings. There they become employees of the many rapidly expanding companies that are in some manner seeking to profit from escalating prices for homes and other assets, as well as from the boom in insurance contract trading. Many quit their jobs to trade contracts in the booming flood reinsurance market.
Trading becomes commonplace in the thriving community that has developed along the river.
With prosperity as far as the eye can see, residents cheerfully borrow against rising home equity, using these funds to buy goods and services and, of course, to trade flood insurance contracts. The perception is of endless wealth, and to not play is tantamount to admitting a character flaw. A boom-time new era mentality grows pervasive for bankers, businessmen, the flood insurance industry and townspeople generally. Their actions seem perfectly rational, as the entire system has evolved to seductively capture the hopes and dreams of individuals throughout the community. In the past, some townspeople worried about floods, especially the older generation that lived through the Great Flood.