by B. » Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:16 pm
I tend to go with the most conservative estimates when it comes to racket-generated income. When you look at most wealthy mafia members throughout history, their true wealth seems to come from legitimate interests. These interests benefited from mafia influence and crossed into grey areas of legality, but they are not necessarily straight up "scams".
There are some exceptions, like bootlegging, which created a major boom for many members but we also don't have an objective way of knowing how much money was truly made then and how many members benefited significantly -- it is mostly anecdotal and some of those who were described as bootlegging kings were already significantly wealthy before prohibition. Look at Maranzano or Siracusa in Pittsburgh. Both were already wealthy and it was their ability to invest money they already had that placed them at the top of the bootlegging pyramid. That's typical of any free market -- it takes money to make money.
This gas scam's more conservative estimates are still worlds beyond other rackets and for some of the reasons already discussed, I lean toward the "smaller" numbers that have been given. My view on racket-generated income is similar to my view on the caps/peak membership -- I go with the most conservative estimates, but the caveat is that I believe they've been able to maintain and sustain those numbers more often than not, naturally with some ups and downs. I believe most mafia members have been and continue to be middle class, but like many middle class people their spending priorities are twisted up and just because they show luxury doesn't mean they have the savings to back it up.
By the way...
Scarpa reported to the FBI that Carmine Persico placed a murder contract on Michael Franzese and sent word to break up Sonny Franzese's Long Island crew and take over his operations as punishment for his son's actions. Franzese's crew resisted, however. This was right before things started to heat up in the family and bigger problems took precedent.
I tend to go with the most conservative estimates when it comes to racket-generated income. When you look at most wealthy mafia members throughout history, their true wealth seems to come from legitimate interests. These interests benefited from mafia influence and crossed into grey areas of legality, but they are not necessarily straight up "scams".
There are some exceptions, like bootlegging, which created a major boom for many members but we also don't have an objective way of knowing how much money was truly made then and how many members benefited significantly -- it is mostly anecdotal and some of those who were described as bootlegging kings were already significantly wealthy before prohibition. Look at Maranzano or Siracusa in Pittsburgh. Both were already wealthy and it was their ability to invest money they already had that placed them at the top of the bootlegging pyramid. That's typical of any free market -- it takes money to make money.
This gas scam's more conservative estimates are still worlds beyond other rackets and for some of the reasons already discussed, I lean toward the "smaller" numbers that have been given. My view on racket-generated income is similar to my view on the caps/peak membership -- I go with the most conservative estimates, but the caveat is that I believe they've been able to maintain and sustain those numbers more often than not, naturally with some ups and downs. I believe most mafia members have been and continue to be middle class, but like many middle class people their spending priorities are twisted up and just because they show luxury doesn't mean they have the savings to back it up.
By the way...
Scarpa reported to the FBI that Carmine Persico placed a murder contract on Michael Franzese and sent word to break up Sonny Franzese's Long Island crew and take over his operations as punishment for his son's actions. Franzese's crew resisted, however. This was right before things started to heat up in the family and bigger problems took precedent.