And so the state – whether through corruption or common interests – increasingly becomes indistinguishable from organized crime. They use similar tactics, pass through a revolving door, and exchange favors.
Was one of those favors helping to bring organized crime finances in from the cold?
Organized Crime Goes Mainstream
Despite assisting with dirty tasks for the government, organized crime and its outfits in Las Vegas were still facing barriers to legitimate financing. That changed after WWII.(당연히 금융을 통해서 합법화 되성습니다...도박판 자체가 돈이 거래되는 곳입니다..)
According to Denton and Morris, the first bank to get in on the lucrative action in Las Vegas was Valley National Bank of Phoenix. It was ‘the principal bank of the mercantile and land development oligarchy of what came to be called “the Phoenix Forty,” including construction magnate Del Webb and especially the politically prominent Goldwater family…”
The bank loaned money to the Flamingo in 1946-47 – “the first significant capitalizing of the Syndicate by prominent American banks.”
Also participating in that loan was Walter Cosgriff’s Salt Lake City(유타주 주도)-based Continental bank. Cosgriff became the yeoman behind “character loans,” a kind of 1950s-60s ESG-esque smokescreen used to sell lending to Las Vegas casinos and their backers. In the 50s there were only a handful of banks in Nevada and entry was tightly guarded. Walter Cosgriff had a connection, however, and saw the potential:
A new financial institution in booming Las Vegas could do on the spot what no other local bank had ever been bold enough to do: loan to the fastest-growing, most profitable industry in the West. It could discreetly funnel and screen money from other banks, companies, or interests that either had to or wanted to conceal their investments in Las Vegas, people who wanted the profit but not the publicity for financing the city and all it represented.
The Bank of Las Vegas opened in 1954 and a young Continental officer was surprisingly put in charge. The 34-year-old Edward Parry Thomas spent WWII in a mountain unit of ski paratroopers and spent time in intelligence interrogating “important” German prisoners. After the war he got a B.A. in banking and finance and immediately went to work for Continental bank in 1948. Six years later he was the point man for all the investors that wanted to capitalize on organized crime’s growth potential:
…it was a revolutionary moment. Though local banks gladly took the growing deposits from gambling just as from Boulder Dam, the magnesium plant, or any other boon, there had been no question of legitimate lending or finance for the city’s unsavory industry.
Just from a business standpoint, lending to organized crime seemed a risky venture. There was the absence of bankable collateral, it was impossible to know the true state of their books, and there was the possibility they might just refuse to pay and resort to violence. The Bank of Las Vegas pushed ahead, nonetheless:
…it was a revolutionary moment. Though local banks gladly took the growing deposits from gambling just as from Boulder Dam, the magnesium plant, or any other boon, there had been no question of legitimate lending or finance for the city’s unsavory industry.
If there was a hidden force behind prominent finance extending its helping hand to organized crime, it remains unclear who exactly that was:
For years to come, in fact, several of the city’s insiders assumed there was some extraordinary unseen authority behind the Bank of Las Vegas, something not even the most notorious criminal gamblers would flout, ultimately ensuring repayment of hundreds of millions of dollars.
From there the floodgates opened. Major investments came from the Mormon church(말일성도교회-유타주가 본산), the Teamsters, clandestine US intelligence fronts, and elsewhere. The results:
Legitimate money building up the Strip now enabled casino owners to fatten profits, including the constant skim and its state tax evasion. But they could also now reinvest more of that take, along with a greater share of the money from nationwide narcotics, prostitution, and other other exploitation, back into still more drug trafficking and corruption, as well as penetration of energy and food resources, entertainment, medical care, insurance, real estate, and full circle back to Las Vegas itself.
The authors spend a considerable amount of the mid-section on the Kennedys and their relations to organized crime. Suffice to say, JFK’s election marked organized crime’s arrival to the table of the nation’s ruling elite(케네디의 당선은 조직범죄가 미국의 지배엘리트들의 책상에 합석한 것을 의미 한다) – at least that’s the way they viewed it even if JFK and RFK didn’t see it the same way.
Details begin to thin out afterwards with the authors jumping between various tales of shady figures in political campaigns, government, and business and connecting them back to Las Vegas and organized crime.
At the same time, the authors’ at times are confined by Las Vegas and Nevada, which might cause them to miss out on potentially interesting vignettes abroad. They only mention organized crime and the state’s cooperation abroad in passing. It would, for example, be interesting to map out the rise in foreign policy gangster tactics (assassinations, coups, etc.) to the state’s burgeoning relationship with organized crime. The same could be applied to Wall Street and the nation’s other economic institutions and sectors.
The authors are content to briefly examine the boost provided by Michael Milken, the Wall Street junk bond legend, who helped replace the largesse of the Teamsters raided pension fund. More exploration would be appreciated, but the conclusion seems sound:
‘As the founders of the city always understood, parties and personalities were minor compared to the stakes now shared among an ever-expanding group of profiteers. Corporate veils and Wall Street brokering had made thousands of stock-owning individuals and institutions, from the Harvard University endowment to the California State Employees Pension Fund, the successors to Costello, Luciano, Siegel, Giancana, and the others as capital funders of the gambling empire. … it was a form of the grand alliance of upperworld and underworld…’
(즉 도박꾼이나 마피아들의 부정하고 냄세나는 돈과 연기금이나 대학의 기금등의 건전한 저축이나 기금들이 한 묵음으로 다 뒤죽 박죽 썩겨 버렷습니다....
이런것에 어떤 생상적인 정책을 사용하여 제어 하려 하더라도 자칫 잘못하면 목욕물과 함께 애도 버러지는 경우가 생길 수 도 잇습니다..
또한 정부의 관료 주의는 투기꾼들의 재빠른 처세를 따라 갈 수 없습니다..
더구나 자유 민주주의 체체 에서는 투표가 권력을 결정하는 기형적인 체제 입니다..
어떤 권력의 좋은 정책이라도 그들은 얼마든지 반대 여론을 조작할 수 잇고 얼마든지 좌절 시킬 수 잇습니다.
민주주의가 파시즘 이라고 햇지요?
민주주의 바로 이런 조직범죄의 숙주인 것이지요..
노무현이 활짝 열어제낀 동북아 금융허브는 바로 조직 범죄의 숙수를 한반도에 만들어 준 것이지요..
노무현교 교도들은 그들의 갱상도 교주님 께옵서 선진금융으로 가는 길을 열어주신 것이라고 나발 거립니다.
사람사는 세상??
삶은 돼야지 돼가리가 벌떡 일어나 웃을 일입니다.
And the damage wrought by that alliance would be immense.
“New American Hometown”
Long before Citizens United legalized political corruption, Denton and Morris detail how organized crime had a strong relationship with every president from JFK to Clinton. Reagan, in particular, became what they thought they had in JFK.
저자들은, 시티즌 유나이트 판결 훨씬 이전 부터 어떻게 범죄조직이 케네디 부터 클린턴 까지의 모든 대통령들과 강력한 관계를 갖고 잇엇는지를 구체적으로 설명 하엿다 ...특히 리이건은 케네디와 같은 인물이다고 하엿다
-시트즌 유나이티드 판결- 기업이-법인격이- 자신들의 이익을 위해 정치자금을 만들고 정치권과 거래를 하는 것은 개인이 개인의 이익을 위해 정치 행위를 하는 것과 꼭 같다...자연적 인격과 법인격은 다른것이 없다,,, 미 대법원의 판결....이 판결로 미국의 기업은 합법적으로 얼마든지 정치자금을 만들어 자신들이 지지하는 정당이나 정치인에게 제공하고 자신들을 위한 법과 규제를 만들거나 철폐을 요구 할 수 잇게 되엇습니다...
미국 정치가 금권정치임을 합법화 시킨 것으로 .. 좌파나 진보적인 시민들은 물론 보수진영에서도 비판을 받고 잇는 판결...
미국이 아무리 중국을 빈정 거려도...중국은 미국을 빈정 거릴 수 잇는 수십배 수백배의 꺼리를 갖고 잇다고 햇지요??
미국의 정치는 월가가 결정합니다.
하지만 중국의 정치는 공산당이 결정합니다...그리고 그 공산당은 인민들의 대표로 구성 되지요.
어떤 방식으로 어떻게 따저 보아도....
미국은 돈이 지배 하는 세상이지만 중국은 인민들이 지배 하는 세상입니다.
시징핑 말 한마디면.....그 어떤놈도 즉각 깨깽 하게 되어 잇는 체체가 중국의 체제이지만
미국의 대통령은 잠시 잠간의 월가의 심부름 꾼일 뿐이지요.
노무현이 보세요....회장님 앞에만 서면 비실 비실 똑 바로 처다 보지도 못 햇쟎어..
한국은 미국과 꼭 같은 자유 민주주의 체체이다 보니....대통령도 돈 앞에서는 깨갱 하는 것이지요.
깨깽~~~~~
아마도 노무현은 한국의 미래를 미국으로 봣고...그 미래의 체체-권력이 이미 시장으로 넘어간 체제-에 미리서 박박기어 그리 꼴 깝질을 떨엇던가 봅니다......등신도 이런 상 등신이 없지만
노무현에만 환장한 갱상도 쥐쇗끼대들은 ..이런 상 빙쉰을 교주님으로 처 받듣고 민주주의 악악 거리며 쌩 지럴들을 떨어 되고 잇습니다..
그 꼴깝질이........가관이야 가간..
The washed up movie actor who had bombed during a two-week stand in Las Vegas a quarter century before becoming president helped usher in a new era for organized crime. Reagan, presiding over one of, if not the largest transfer of wealth in the nation’s history, was also a boon for organized crime.(리이건 이후 트럼프의 부자 감세도 잇엇습니다..이 책이 쓰여질때가 2001년이니 저자들의 트럼프에 대한 상상은 기대 하기 어렵습니다)
‘Whatever the hoary compromises of the Washington regime, the face of the Syndicate was changing in the eighties as so much else in the country. By the natural attrition of aging feudal barons, by the periodic prosecution of crime lords in New York and elsewhere, the previously recognizable mob was fading. A new, educated, more refined, carefully groomed, and legalized postmodern Syndicate was already emerging. Financed and reinforced by the political economy created by the Reagan revolution, Las Vegas was no longer to be its outpost colony or clearinghouse, but its sparking capital.’
And as Reagan-era economic dogma still reigns, the long-present ills of organized crime’s capital has spread to every corner of the country.
Even at the end of the 1950s, ‘Nevada now had the highest crime and suicide rates in the nation, with Las Vegas employing three times as many police as any other city its size, and dealing with record-breaking crime rates in bad checks and burglary, as well as liquor consumption more than 200 percent above the national average.’
…‘“To be a vagrant in Las Vegas,” one visitor noted of a town crowded with homeless decades before they were even recognized as a national social problem, “is to invite a jail sentence.”’
Unaware of the foreboding, in 1994 Time declared that Las Vegas was an “all-American city” and representative of the “new American hometown.” In retrospect, Time was right, albeit not in the way it intended.
Social issues that had unsurprisingly plagued a city built by organized crime became national problems: crime and attempts to make economic problems disappear with more police, low wages, lack of healthcare, homelessness, and deaths of despair. Organized crime and the casinos were also always at the vanguard of attacks on organized labor – resorting to violence when corruption was off the table.
조직 범죄로 지어진 도시-라스베가스를 당연하게 괴롭혔던 사회 문제는 미 국가 전체의 문제가 되었다.
범죄 와 ,,,더 많은 경찰, 저임금, 건강보험의 결핖, 노숙, 절망으로 인한 죽음으로 사라지게 하려햇던 경제문제들이 그렇다..
조직 범죄와 카지노는 항상 조직화된 노동에 대한 공격의 선봉에 잇엇고 부패에 동의하지 않으면 폭력을 사용햇다.
Nowadays, labor has been so thoroughly weakened that in many cases it (and daily life in general) more closely resembles a trip to the casino where the house always wins.(오늘날 노동(조합)은 너무 약해젓기 때문에 많은 경우 이들은-이들의 일반적인 생활은- 하우스 전주가 항상 이기게 되어 잇는 카지노의 여행과 더 비슷해 젓다) As Hamilton Nolan writes about Uber:
Interviews with drivers reveal that the sheer unpredictability of this wage system transforms work into something more akin to gambling. Like slot machine players always wondering if the next spin will be the lucky one, workers are put in a position of being incentivized to constantly stay available, in the event that the fluctuating wage level happens to rise at any given moment.
National politics, too, mirror the longstanding practice in Vegas: “the regime runs nicely, politics confined to minor differences of personality or method on the margins of power.”
국가 정치 역시 라스베이거스의 오랜 관행을 반영하고 잇다: "정권은 잘 운영되는 듯 보이고, 정치는 개성이나 권력의 가장자리에 있는 방법의 사소한 차이에 국한된다."
--국힘당 민주당이 무슨 차이가 잇지요??
노무현교 도팍들은 우린 재인이 보유국가라고 합디다..
성열리 도팍들은 우린 김건희 보유국가 라고 합니다......
참으로 완벽한 비유쉰 꼴깝질입니다...
노무현 이명박 박그뇌 문재인 윤성열............
대체 이들에게서 무슨 차이가 잇는지..다른소린 도무지 모르겟고
노무현과 문재인의 "사람사는 세상"과 박그뇌 "경제민주화" 윤서열의 "공정과 상식" 이 대체 무엇이 다릅니까??
As Denton and Morris write about the gambling industry, which is true of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex, “Now it’s an open orgy of power. If politicians don’t give back what they want, they run them out.”
Maybe the following passage, which describes organized crime fear in Vegas’ early days that a crackdown would come, best shows how the attitude in Vegas became today’s national business creed and political standard:
“It was always part of their greed,” a lawyer for the casinos thought afterward. “They were grabbing everything they could get their hands on because there was still the fear, justified or not, that it could end any time, that it was all too good to be true.”
A 2001 New York Times review of “The Money and the Power” focuses almost exclusively on the more lurid aspects of Sin City and admonishes Denton and Morris for looking down their noses at how “ordinary people come [to Las Vegas] to feel, for a weekend, like big shots.” It also ignores the book’s argument that state and organized crime had become indistinguishable from one another, noting mockingly that “for Denton and Morris, even to wear tailored clothes indicates crooked venality.”
I would take the opposite view: Denton and Morris should have focused less on the more sensational aspects of Las Vegas and more on the state-organized crime fusion and its tentacles into every corner of the economy and foreign policy (maybe readers have recommendations on books that deal more completely with the latter?)
Nonetheless, if you need a refresher or a first-time peek, the book provides a summary of the interwovenness of the state and organized crime throughout the second half of the 20th century. No doubt an updated version nearly a quarter-century after the original was published would have plenty more evidence to work with.