He did not retain one of the many firms that specialize in site consulting, a profession less about finding suitable real estate and more about knowing how to extract from the government part or all of the cost of any new job-creating investment. Keiser just put the word out to some real estate agents that he was looking to buy land by the square mile.Keiser did not solicit government economic development agencies to woo him with offers of money, tax breaks, or other favors, either. That would have offended his libertarian views. Instead, Keiser did business the old-fashioned way: He put up his own money, in hard cash, and took on all the risk that his venture might be an utter failure.Even so, without asking, Keiser ended up collecting a subsidy worth at least $12 million per year and probably more than twice that much. This subsidy is about to grow by about half. The reason is another subsidy, which he did seek. That Keiser benefits from a subsidy he did not even ask for shows how deeply embedded are new economic rules that take from the many to enrich the few.In 1971, Mike Keiser found a niche in the greeting-card business and made a fortune growing it.
