I had an occasion to visit with a group of tele-marketers this week.  On one of those great Ozark early spring days, a dozen or more of the Spinnaker Properties staff, were out on the veranda, (actually it was a concrete & steel commercial building outside corridor) taking what occured to me was a well earned break.  Since last falls confirmation by Katie Couric and the rest of the international media apparatus that the world had "gone to hell", it crossed my mind that selling "ozark timeshares" in March 09' would be like selling Dasani to the drowning.  I was wrong.  A little friendly inquire quickly evidenced that The Dow, The Federal Reserve, The Bailout, The Foreclosure Rate, the Plummeting of House Values, Indeed None of the Above was relevant to their quest.  One of the older and more confident of the group proceeded to explain, with nods of acknowledgment from the group, that their task was more simple.  He explained, what I had not known, namely that about !.5% of the population of this country, are "born with the consumer gene".  According to this unsuspected molecular geneticist, a small subset of our species have an innate and irrepressible instinct to buy things.  All that is required, so he reported, is that they simply have to be reached by "a good salesman" and that they will as a matter of natural course, "sign on the dotted line".  From their veranda vista, I could count perhaps a thousand unoccupied condos maintained and manicured by yesteryear's "consumer gene people". It seemed like incontrovertible evidence and so I, perplexed, but somewhat changed, wandered down the hill to play my part in this extraordinary drama called Branson.