I Wish I Was a Gangster

ROUGH DRAFT:  Feedback/suggestions requested.

I wish I was a gangster.  Anything illegal, immoral or dangerous seems extra exciting to me.  There’s also something about being a conflicted character that’s appealing.  I love the gangster who runs a soup kitchen by day and smuggles whiskey by night.  I’d rather be a good bad-guy than a bad good-guy–I guess it seems more achievable.

If I were a gangster I’d definitely be a good bad-guy.  I wouldn’t be a knuckle-dragging jailhouse–sissy hanging my pants off my ass.  I wouldn’t wear red or blue or even green.  (I also wouldn’t wear a double-breasted pin-striped suit with a fedora.)  I wouldn’t advertise with a can of spray-paint.  Sign language would be reserved for communicating with the hearing-impaired.  When you’re a real gangster showing off is redundant.

If I were a gangster, I’d spend my time fighting the bad good-guys and eliminating the bad bad-guys.  I don’t know what to do with the good good-guys.  I’m not even sure I know who they are.  Maybe they could just go around, undisturbed by the rest of us, being delightful.

I don’t think I’d have a problem doing-in the bad-guys–they have it coming.  They wouldn’t be surprised either.  When you play the bad bad-guy game you know someday your number will be up.  (Good-guys everywhere are cringing because I ended the last sentence with a preposition.)  The only difficulty I anticipate is distinguishing between the good bad-guys and the really bad ones.

Who are the bad good-guys?  There are at least two different types.  They both steal from the poor to give to the rich and they do it legally.  If a bad bad-guy stole as much as they did, he’d go to prison for life.  If a bad good-guy steals the same amount he’s promoted to the executive office of either the boardroom or the White House.  These two groups are corporate executives and government bureaucrats.

If the people try to redistribute a rich man’s wealth it’s called communism.  (The executive hopes the working man is too ignorant to realize that a large portion of his income is in the form of dividends and options which are taxed as capital gains, and aren’t subject FICA taxes.  Leaving them with greater income and a lower tax rate than the pawns.)  If that same business man exploits those workers, pays them a fraction of their worth, and laying them off “at will”, it’s called capitalism.

The Yankee Capitalist is a master manipulator of political correctness.  He would NEVER own slaves, and secretly despises a geographical region that once did.  The executive actually preaches the value of diversity.  Of course he doesn’t give a rip about equality or reparations.  He has no intention of raising a disadvantaged group to the prosperity level of the advantaged.  His aim is to save a buck by lowering all workers compensation to equal that of the lowest group.

While the businessman doesn’t practice human ownership, he is an expert at marketing reduced wages.  Instead of referring to what historically has been called “wage-slavery” he offers a salaried position with benefits and calls it security.  Of course this employee has no realistic expectation of benefiting from the businesses up-side potential and bears a disproportionate exposure to down-side risk.  If the capitalist makes an error in judgment, he simply lays-off the thousands of people who did the real work of the business.

As a gangster I’d say, give the executives their salaries, bonuses, options, and golden parachutes; extortion is much more efficient when wealth is concentrated.  Anyone who believes they deserve a retention bonus equaling TWENTY YEARS of income for the average American family has enough moral material to support a profitable blackmail enterprise.

Government bureaucrats represent another ripe opportunity for a gangster.  As a group, government officials compete most aggressively with the gangster.  But there is room for optimism.

Gangs used to run loan-shark, liquor, gambling, and violence rackets.  Now the government backs Fannie, Freddie, and Sally.  It peddles, licenses, distributes, and taxes liquor and tobacco.  (Hey–why prohibit something when you can tax the hell out of it?)  The same goes for gambling.  The government runs everything from Vegas to Powerball.  It’s a great idea!  Tax the poor to subsidize education for the middle class so they can work as middle-managers for the upper-crust.  Now that’s capitalism.  Don’t even get me started on the violence!  Classify gun-owners as Jesse James-style outlaws and regulate anything that can do more than bring down a deer.  (Consider this an armed-uprising prevention strategy, which helps soothe the fears of the rich.)  Next they recruit the lower classes into the armed forces to fight wars for the wealthy.  (Oops, I meant to say patriotically protect America’s vital economic and political interests.)  Later those soldiers can retire to the police force to protect the rich from poor-crime.

It wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit to take a bite out of their crime.  Sin tax is a wonderful opportunity for an enterprising gangster like myself.  Corporate-types can’t compete with a dirty black market opportunity.

In some states, the government is the sole liquor distributor.  Retailers pay huge license and franchise fees to the state for the privilege of selling the alcohol they bought from the state.  Bars and restaurants have to buy from the retailers, pay additional license fees, which are in addition to their own business licenses, sales, property, and if they earn a living, income taxes.

Consumers pay more tax on a pack of cigarettes that the combined revenue of the grower, manufacturer, distributor and retailer combined.  To add insult to injury the sin tax is added to the retail price and subjected to a sales tax.  Meanwhile the tobacco industry pays income and property taxes at every stop from seed to sale.

Where does all this tax money go?  To police departments that prevent poor-crime.  To prisons that house poor-criminals.  To schools that convert dumb poor-people into wage-slaves for the rich.  More importantly it’s a direct deposit into a gangster’s bank account called “opportunity”.

As a gangster, I can solve these problems and become a hero to the unrepresented classes.  It wouldn’t be hard to find an over-zealous Marlboro salesman who would be willing to bypass the federal cigarette tax by selling to me through an Indian reservation.  (Hey, he’s just trying to work his way up to CEO.)  It wouldn’t be hard to buy Tequila in Mexico.  (NOTICE to all Illegal Immigrants:  While you’re walking across the border, please take a case of Petron with you.)

From there it’s a simple matter of finding an underpaid, disgruntled 7-11 clerk or a bartender.  They simply maintain their own inventory of the best-selling cigarette or liquor selling their inventory instead of the store’s to cash customers.

I’m not sure if I can really compete with the corporate or government elite, but that’s part of the gangster attraction for me.  I guess when I say I want to be a gangster, what I really mean is that I want an honest, honorable opportunity that makes me a killing, helps the little-guy, and sticks it to the bad-guys (and the bad good-guys.)  It would be a lot easier if I knew who the good guys are.