A way to make a buck circa 1977

With all the subprime mortgage meltdowns going on now (the next tier of meltdown to follow I suspect -- with even high end residences going into foreclosures), it's interesting to note that Elmore Leonard knew enough about the business that one of the protagonists from his 1977 crime story The Hunted had made a lot of money selling bundled mortgages to banks for a fee.

"I'm no longer president of my fucking company. That's what he tells me. They voted me out, these clucks on board, guys I brought in. Let 'em buy a piece of the business. Mel says after three years of carrying me, they voted me a final payment, the two hundred grand and that's it, for my stock, everything. I can't bring suit because I'm not there. Two hundred grand, the fucking company's writing a hundred million dollars worth of home mortgages a year. . . ."

"That's what you're in, the mortgage business?"

"Mortgage broker," Rosen said. "We secure government-approved mortgages, usually on low-cost housing around Detroit, and sell them to out-of-state banks at one, one and a quarter percent."

"I don't understand anything about that," Davis said. "I never owned a home."

"It's paperwork. You hire bookkeppers and lawyers like Mel, the sonofabitch. He's gonna tell them--the guys you were shooting at--that he contacted me, yes, to tell me I'm out of the business, that's all. So he doesn't have anything more to do with me."