My father wouldn't get a vanity plate. Because he wanted plausible deniability. Not that my dad was the type to step out, but if someone said they saw his car here or there he could always say it wasn't him, but if the license plate said "Lefsetz," he'd be nailed, he'd have to admit it.
Life used to be different, then income inequality burgeoned and the only thing left for the little people was fame, they certainly couldn't make beaucoup bucks. In order to win the jackpot, you've got to put your nose to the grindstone and complete years of education. Or you can be an entrepreneur working 24/7 for years with no guarantee of return. Most people would rather party. The lottery can give them the illusion of becoming rich, but ultimately it's just a tax on the poor, and the supposed American Dream, which George Carlin said you have to be asleep to believe, has become statistically less achievable over time.
But you could be on reality TV. Or ultimately an influencer on social media. As far as becoming rich, did you read that Kylie Jenner is not the youngest self-made billionaire? Because she's not even a billionaire, nowhere close, "Forbes" crunched the numbers, turned out she was lying.
But Kylie Jenner is an entertainer, using her fame to try and generate capital, and that's what entertainers do, lie.
All the time, on a regular basis.
If you read how rich an entertainer is... You can probably discount that number by 25%, if not 50% or 75%. That's part of their image, that they made it and are enjoying the spoils. And the devil is in the details anyway. The news constantly prints the gross, not the net... And the net might not even exist, the tour might have ended up in the red. But you heard they grossed $100 million!
Who's to call them on it?
"Forbes" was just correcting Kylie to exclude her from their list of billionaires, "Forbes" wanted to be authoritative. The rest of the world? Either didn't care or bought it hook, line and sinker.
Records... Taylor Swift won't release the gross per gig because she wants to wow everybody with the final number, setting a record. Good for her, but she ain't netting a billion dollars, nowhere close. And there are Fortune 500 executives you've never heard of who are richer than Swift. Yes, you can work for the man and end up making a billion, primarily based on stock rewards. That's where the real money is, in corporations, on Wall Street, entertainment is chump change.
But it's entertainment that the people see.
You can make up any story you want, they said Frank Zappa crapped on stage. Of course that didn't happen, but who was going to check on it? Furthermore, who in the artist's camp is going to say it's untrue if it benefits their boss?
You see people in entertainment are selling their image. And the public is imitating the entertainers, as it has always done.
But if you're not in entertainment, if your income is not based on image, setting records, being bigger and better than anybody else, STFU!
That's what the blue bloods did.
Back in the fifties and sixties, even into the seventies, you couldn't tell who the really rich were. At that point, the rich had inherited the money. And they drove old Country Squires and wore threadbare khakis and Top-Siders. They undersold their assets, they didn't want the attention. They didn't want their kids kidnapped, they didn't want to anger those less fortunate, they flew beneath the radar.
However, starting with lower tax rates in the eighties, and then the tech boom, never mind the financialization of America, today's rich have actually made the money, they earned it...and too many want to tell you about it.
They want to tell you how hard they worked and still do. And they want you to envy their significant other and lifestyle. They want to tell you they're better than you. When in truth they should be fading back into the woodwork, like the blue bloods of yore. Because the image is paying no dividends, it might even have a cost. Have you noticed that David Geffen has been out of the fray since he posted on Instagram that he was spending the Covid lockdown on his yacht? He'll never live down the backlash. And goofy, laughing Jeff Bezos was tolerated as a brilliant nerd until he stole his good friend's wife and was seen cavorting and canoodling with her all over the world. I mean what's the benefit?
Well, in truth to make that kind of dough you usually need to fill an unfillable hole. Maybe you never got the love you deserved from your mother, maybe you were bullied in school. And, in truth, most of these people never get over it, but whereas entertainers tend to have a lifespan, living on fumes after a peak, these business people continue to rake in the dough and they want to continue to impress you who they are and you're not.
And that brings attention.
In other words, if your business is not based on gaining attention, do your best not to get attention.
The odds of getting audited are low. But boast about your riches and spending and the odds increase.
Like those people who give quotes to newspapers, about their financial situation. Do you think no one in the government reads? No one is paying attention? Raise your head and it might get chopped off.
And for the little people... You don't want to be in the news either. It's a momentary high and then you've got to live with what you've said for the rest of your life, it stands online, and you might not be proud of it, and it might draw negative attention and consequences. And if you didn't know before, I'm telling you now, journalists are not your friends, they cozy up to you and then dump you after they get what they want.
So Donald Trump was lying about the value of his assets ad infinitum. It was part of his brand, how rich he was. But no one in New York really cared, many saw him as a braggart, an irrelevant second-rate real estate developer from Queens. The real movers and shakers, the traditionalists, were never going to let him in their club.
And Donald was unhappy with this. So he kept upping the ante, raising his public profile. But there were so many skeletons in his closet.
You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. Kinda like Kylie Jenner, she could boast how rich she was, but if she wanted to call herself a billionaire and be on the "Forbes" list, there were going to be consequences.
So Donald Trump is on Fox, talking about Obama's birth certificate, bloviating on Howard Stern's show, but when he started to run for President...
I'm not talking about the hoi polloi. I'm not talking about the people who voted for him. I'm talking raw business here. Donald Trump thought his secrets, his shenanigans, would never catch up with him. But how does that song go? I fought the law and the law won?
Not every time. But it's never defeated all the time either. And Trump had a lot of smoking guns, which continued to smolder. And he was making enemies all the while. Raise your head above the fray and people less fortunate, or those who don't like you, will want to bring you down a peg, show that you're not that special, no better than them.
Think about it... You can't get rich working for the government. So why are people doing so? For the power, for the ability to set the record straight, to separate right from wrong, to punish bad actors. This is literally their job, this is what they live for. And they cannot be bought off, not all of them, even though the rich regularly try. Isn't that the story of Clarence Thomas? It's all about working the refs. It's never black and white. It's about shading. You want to get the benefit of the doubt, and if the person deciding your fate has been the beneficiary of your largesse, they don't want to wake up one day and go against you, because then they're toast. Believe me, in the music business sycophants are rampant, the perks can be amazing, the whole system is based on fake news stories amplified by those essentially on the take. However, go against your benefactor even once, and you're done, there's no coming back. You see stories in the "New Yorker," never mind the "Times," pontificating about the truth, the details of the entertainment business, and they almost always get it wrong, or never get to the key elements, because everybody inside, who wants to remain inside, knows there are certain things you cannot say, certain truths you cannot reveal. Furthermore, the participants are smart, they might talk up a storm, but they don't put it in writing, they never put it in writing, because if it's oral, something they said, they've got plausible deniability. It's their word against...
But our entire country is based on entertainment, hype. No one believes they have enough, people believe they're entitled to more. They're busy keeping up with the Joneses when...there's always somebody richer than you, always. Or someone with a better education, who's better traveled. Which is why the truly elite that sustain never boast. You don't know what they have, so they can never be caught in a lie, never be judged negatively, the image of a business person should be mystery.
Notice how managers never reveal their income? You want to stay out of the fray. Punters know who Scooter Braun is, to his detriment.
So unless you're making your money on your image, of being super-successful, larger than life, stay quiet. You're only antagonizing others by boasting. And when those people have the power of the law, or even the power of the pen, you'd better watch out.
Believe me, Donald Trump is scared. He's fighting these legal situations, but he couldn't change the vote so he would remain President and he can't beat the Feds on every count, never mind the State actors. He's got a strategy, to go on offense, to throw the book at opponents, and with individuals this often works, because they can't afford to defend themselves, whereas the government? The cash is not unlimited, but the investigation, the prosecution, can sustain.
Trump made some bad decisions. If you're gonna lie and cheat, do your best to never be in the sunshine, and Trump broke this immutable law. Because criminals almost never skate, not when they've got such a high profile. Al Capone was nailed for tax evasion, and Whitey Bulger was living the life of a nobody before he was captured and put in prison and ultimately killed by inmates.
I'd love to tell you to fly right, on the straight and narrow, but the truth is, unfortunately, to get ahead you often do have to lie. Try getting a job without experience, good luck. Everybody lies. But is lying your business, like in entertainment? If not, know when to hold back. Otherwise your lies are going to bite you in the ass, it's just a matter of when.
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