Where did the money to buy such power come from? Although some of the new wealth on the Westside arose from the military aerospace boom of the later 1950s, the locus of power, as in previous generations, remained real-estate speculation. But, as we have stressed, the game was now played within the new rules of Keynesian suburbanization set by the FHA and Fannie Mae. Two rising groups of entrepreneurs dominated the 1950s building boom from their Westside headquarters outside the radius of Downtown power. First were the merchant builders, mostly 1940s newcomers, like Nate Shapell, Larry Weinberg, Louis Boyar, Ray Watt, Bill Lyon, and (later) Eli Broad. Secondly were the savings-and-loan empires that funneled mortgage capital from all over the country to Southern California homebuilders. In the 1950s this was an extraordinarily dynamic industry with a deposit base growing 21 per cent per annum. The preeminent local firms were Ahmanson’s Home Federal Savings (number one in the USA) and Mark Taper’s First Charter Corporation (number three). Moreover the building and savings-and-loan sectors were complexly integrated by strategic combinations (for instance, Taper’s alliance with Boyar and Weinberg to mass-produce the suburb of Lakewood) as well as by the massive reinvestment of builders’ profits in the thrift industry.