The Story of The Mafia and The Businessman

Impact

There once was a grizzled old man named Irwin who owned an insurance brokerage business. Irwin was a good businessman that people trusted to insure their possessions. Because Irwin was so good at serving his customers, he ended up making a lot of money.

As Irwin set about growing his business and reinvesting his profits, the mafia began to take note of Irwin’s business dealings. Irwin happened to be living in an area where the mafia had established a “protection” racket. The “protection” racket operated something like this: a business owner would pay the mafia a percentage of his profits, and in return for this, the mafia would “protect” that business from other thieves and mafia families.  

Of course, if a business owner refused to pay for protection, he would end up being kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon surrounded by violent men. Once the businessman had been kidnapped, the mafia would then take all of his possessions for themselves as “restitution” for being inconvenienced.

Most businessmen who lived under the control of the mafia readily agreed to this. In fact, many even appreciated the mafia’s protection since they knew that no other thieves would dare mess with them.

To keep up appearances, the mafia dons made a point of helping out the communities they controlled. After all, the more businesses earned, the more the mafia was able to skim from them.  So the mafia dons would do nice things, like buy food for some of the poorer families in their neighborhoods, provide low interest loans to businessmen, and even fix a few pot holes in the streets outside of the businesses they “protected.”

The mafia knew they couldn’t take too much from the businessmen or they would put them out of business, but the mafia had other ways of making money for themselves besides robbing businessmen and profiting from the black market.  

One of the main sources of revenue for the mafia was counterfeit money. The mafia managed to acquire some very expensive Simultan printing presses, which they used to create the counterfeit money. The mafia would then loan out the printed money through their foreign operations to keep the flow of money hidden from the public eye.

Irwin didn’t like this one a bit. Irwin knew that the mafia was eventually going to destroy his savings from the inflation that resulted from their money printing. Irwin also knew that the “good” the mafia was doing was simply to keep up public appearances.  

Since the public greatly outnumbered the mafia, the mafia only did just enough “good” to keep the public from revolting against them, while keeping the balance of money for themselves. Irwin figured that if the public was allowed to keep their own money, they could do more good than the mafia ever could.

Being the crotchety old man that he was, Irwin decided he wasn’t going to pay the protection money the mafia was demanding from him. Irwin sent the mafia letters telling them that what they were doing was wrong and he wasn’t going to take it any more.

The mafia didn’t like this one bit. They grew very angry with Irwin over his refusal to pay his share of “protection” money. Eventually they kidnapped him and took everything he owned.  The other business owners rejoiced because they felt Irwin had an unfair advantage since he was keeping all his money for himself. The public also praised the mafia because they wanted the mafia to provide more handouts and fix more pot holes with the money they were stealing.

Very few people cared about what happened to Irwin. Many people knew he was stuck in a dungeon somewhere, but that didn’t bother them in the slightest. You see, the mafia took Irwin’s money for themselves and then used the counterfeit money from their printing presses to pay for some of the old folks medical care and retirements. No one wanted that to end.  

Today, Irwin Schiff is sitting in a Federal Prison for tax evasion.

Irwin's son, Peter Schiff, comments on his father's incarceration at the hands of the mafia state.

In Itally, the mafia parades through the streets with public support. The mafia even has the support of local clergymen, who have allowed the mafia to take over religious cerimonies (most likely in exchange for favors). Of course, clergymen from outside the town who protest the mafia's actions have their houses shot up.

As a final sidenote, Al Capone was ultimately sent to prison for tax evasion. The mafia state doesn't like it when other criminal organizations muscle in on its territory.