Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian AlexanderMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The mentality that lived on money gathered from cash-out home refinancing hits companies. Here, the story is of what appears to be a one-horse town when it comes to industry, that industry being glass and the town being Lancaster, Ohio. There are many such towns, beholden to a single company for the source of many, if not most well paying jobs and for donations that ensure the local economy worked. I’m from one such town. When a company, or in this case a plant, becomes the instrument of a series of investors intent on de-capitalizing for their own profit, the wreckage includes the plant, but also the workers and the community. The book focuses on two related topics. The main thread covers the series of owners of the plant and the steps they take to ultimately make money. There seems to be a lot of planning that never amounts to anything. The second thread is about the drug culture in town. I liked the first topic, it explains how money is made by private equity. The second topic was tangential, and could stand on its own. Depressing in many ways.
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