Sometimes it feels like we’re back in the 1890’s.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Was Hearst fronting for overseas organized crime?
Amazing tale. Soon to be made into a movie plot, likely fiction to avoid a lawsuit.
One of the things that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is likely to accelerate if it is implemented is transnational competition of crime organizations. And the question becomes as it was in the 1890s, “How do you tell the difference between a corporation and a crime organization?”
You write:
And a corollary:
Answer?
Sure.
It’s a matter of success.
Relative success.
Good ideas start small.
Then they grow.
When they get to be a certain size…of a certain wealth…the grifters invariably take over.
After that?
As I say below, there are always resistors to this process. Not the least of thgem is the inbred greed of said grifters. Eventually they all eat themselves to death.
Meanwhile, back at the feeding trough…
Try to avoid the explosion.
AG
One of my very favourite Python riffs. “The truth will set you free, but sometimes the truth is really, really disgusting.” Thanks.
To be fair, in his time the UK, Dutch, and to a lesser extent France and Belgium had a lock on criminal globalization, but he did his part to unlock the portion controlled by Spain.
Booman…everything old is new again.
And the corollary.
Everything “new” has always been old.
Get used to it.
It ain’t gonna change.
Find a scam that worked well on humans. Dress it up in new clothes and run it again.
And again and again and again and again…
Will humanity “wake up” eventually?
On the evidence of aeons?
No.
Like I said…get used to it. Deal wid it as you must…there are always good resistors that stop these scams from taking over everything, not the least of which is the bone-deep greed of the grifters. Aspire to be one of them. I do.
But…
It ain’t gonna change. Accept it.
And then fight.
You be bettah off.
Merry Christmas.
AG
Looks as if Mother Nature launched her own War on Christmas. Or welcome to a SoCal Christmas.
My trees and lilacs are starting to bud out in this Spring-like weather. One dogwood, three apple trees, and three roses still have some green leaves. The two climbers planted back in April have a LOT of green leaves. Prediction is for snow/rain and highs around freezing and lows in the teens. I think I’ll have a lot of dead trees/plants next April. The weather here in Suburban Chicago (NOT near the Lake but west of O’Hare) has been like Seattle’s normal weather.
Not to worry — GMO scientists are working on implanting cockroach genes in all our plants and trees to make them fully adaptable to whatever weather is delivered.
Add they will be able to survive a million Rads of Radiation! So lets go to the brink with Putin! Right? OK, tongue is out of cheek.
Putin? Cruz is opining about turning the sands of somewhere into glass.
You must get and read “The Devil’s Chessboard.” Plenty of new in it for me, but you don’t seem to be aware of much that’s in it.
GOP leaders love Putin, or have a man crush on him. GOP base hates him.
Seems as if you have that backwards. Although I suppose you could view Trump and Cruz as GOP leaders, but wouldn’t that also mean that their supporters, a significant portion of the GOP base, also have a “man crush” on Putin? Personally, at this time, that GOP base hates the GOP elites, Obama, Clinton, Democrats, liberals, etc. So they’ll follow anyone that shares their hates regardless of whatever that person champions.
This is a good short article — Obsessive Putin Bashing. More easily understandable if one has read The Devil’s Chessboard. You do seem to me to be locked into the Cold War/Dulles world view without a clue as to the extent that it was concocted/constructed by Dulles and his fellow travelers and who loathed JFK for interfering in their disreputable plans and actions.
We’ve been in the New Gilded Age for some time now, Booman. This is just further evidence. Still, THIS is special:
Judge Gonzalez is overseeing a case against Adelson and his gambling company by a former attorney who alleges “he was fired for trying to break the company’s links to Chinese organized crime triads.” The employee also claims “Adelson turned a blind eye to prostitution and other illegal activities in his resorts there.”
Meteor Blades – A rare bipartisan Congress gives microbeads the heave-ho, one step in curbing oceanic plastic debris
(Must not be enough plastic micro-bead lobbyists.)
A few years ago the Sis gave me a cleanser that for some reason the “microbeads” on the label prompted me to research what this was before using it. Then didn’t know how to dispose of what seemed to me like a toxic substance.
It feels pretty good but I try to avoid them.
Here’s a good article on Wendelstein 7-x that should make you feel more like you’re living in the 21st century.
This story, it isn’t just about the triads. For anyone interested in the business model that led to the spectacular success of Adelson’s investment in Macau the sober truth is that Adelson’s Macau casino was the major to launder money for corrupt Chinese government officials at all levels. Billions of dollars of stolen cash, staked on Adelson’s gaming tables, was readily moved on, usually to the West, as legitimate winnings.
Consequently the Macau Sands, awash in tainted cash, was a nexus of skulduggery; elite corruption, international espionage and, probably, blackmail and extortion. Rumour has it that the CIA became tacit enablers of the enterprise, for obvious reasons.
That Adelson is tangled up with the triads seems just bad middle management because someone got greedy; he was sitting on the biggest cash cow in the new millennium. Interestingly, though, the high-profile defendant in an unrelated case of criminal bribery, Ng Lap Seng, is apparently connected to Adelson in Macau:
Before Ng was laundering money in Macau and bribing corrupt officials at the UN his name surfaced in a DNC influence peddling case relating to the Clintons back in 1996. More baggage:
I’ve been watching this space pretty closely since the arrest earlier this year; a really tangled web of SPECTRE-level villainy and corruption with some pretty significant potential outcomes.
This really does explain how a late-comer to the US (principally Vegas) “gaming” industry managed to get so much richer and faster than other players that, with the exception of Trump, weren’t slouches.
It does. By accident or design an act of criminal genius. I’m following this story closely because of the diverse group of powerful connected actors for whom exposure from this story is undesirable; Adelson and his apparently endless entourage of enablers and sycophants, the Chinese government, the CIA, perhaps even the Clintons, in the case of Ng, and Lord knows whom else. It’s a pretty impressive collection with a shared, vested interest in making it all go away quietly.
Keep us posted. Very much appreciate it when someone trustworthy takes on the task of following a very slowly developing story.
(Not being able to see more than how quickly and extremely wealthy Adelson didn’t add up to passing the smell test for me. It was too “off,” but commanded as much attention from reporters as “the best company in America” (Enron) did in its high flying days even though that one didn’t add up either. Nor did that Allen Stanford guy. Back several decade, this sort of crap didn’t go hidden and dismissed for as long as they seem to today.)
Your instincts were correct. Though it wasn’t just Adelson. The question of complicity by corrupt Macanese officials begs the question how much of this business model was intentionally promoted by corrupt Chinese at the highest levels of their own government, not to mention our own State Department for their own motives or constraints of diplomacy. The party is over but the damage has been done:
Even that story, with its focus on retail gambling, elides the significance of the former high tide of corruption. Others know better:
There you have it.
Misreported the date, that story is from last February 18th.
It’s ironic that the money liberated by Chinese government corruption is infesting our own in similar ways. Who could have imagined, eh?
This surfaced somewhat accidentally:
In a rare instance of actual journalism (from the Guardian, of course) you can read the whole report yourself in the link embedded within the quoted article. So the CIA is probably now aiding the cover-up and enabling Adelson’s weaseling and misdirection.
I may have seen that, but suspicions or beliefs without evidence that also serve a storyline that’s convenient for the accusers shouldn’t carry much weight other than as a sign to take a closer look.
Interesting how some of us “knew” from the first reports of the DNC Watergate break-in that it smelled like Nixon. Yet, few reporters followed their nose on this and fewer still stayed on it. The corporatization of news since then, means that there are even fewer reporters and less chance than ever that one can “smell” a big story and have the resources to follow it.
Indelible lesson, “Follow the money.” It leads straight to motive and enables opportunity.
From the article above:
Yeah, like they’re gonna make that movie.
Did you read the report of Adelson’s testimony in that trial? It was amusing. A combination of arrogance and stupidity, iirc.
But it seems intentional misdirection from a story that was actually quite juicy; here’s the Guardian’s account, even though it also leads with the Adelson “delusional” quote. And the long read from April. What a country!
Thought some of that was at least touched on during his court appearance (could have been in the LV Review), but perhaps I read the Guardian reports as well.
When I was young did some analysis of embezzlement and burglary exposures at NV casinos. But the on-site work was always done by my boss who enjoyed his NV business trips. After one of them he said, “This was much easier in the old days before the suits took over. The mob took care of their thieves without bothering to report them to us.”
A side note — when the S&Ls were melting down, it was discovered that men that would have (or were) rejected for NV gaming licenses had no trouble getting state S&L licenses.
To ask about your resume sometime.
Yeah the court appearance was fairly revealing although it was just an evidentiary hearing and none of the ‘big questions’ were asked. The case now convenes in June back in Gonzalez’s court. Before Adelson bought the Review-Journal it was the prime source for coverage of this trial. He must really not want Sands China to be included among the plaintiffs; he lost a frivolous, acrimonious and judicially disrespectful Nevada Supreme Court jurisdiction and change of venue suit only after alienating the original judge (see link for classic unhappy judge image, it should me a meme). Now he’s bought the paper to strangle reporting and defame her. Anything goes.
BooMan’s right; this is robber baron behaviour.
I’ll speak generally but not specifically because then I couldn’t reveal real stories without risking the identification of others that I have no ill intent towards but the stories don’t put them in a favorable light. To the best of my knowledge, with one possible exception (busted by the SEC but not convicted), none were engaged in any illegal activities nor much that I would characterize as sleazy. Plus, being privy to confidential information, there’s a duty to keep it confidential as to names, dates, etc. unless there is a compelling reason why the public should know more than the stories I choose to tell.
Will reveal that I never worked for any public agency. Always private sector but at an interesting intersection between public, private, and legal. Mostly domestic but some minor international work. An old profession but generally obscure.
Sounds like a claims adjuster. Note I didn’t formally ask, as the long-standing right-of-privacy of blogging properly and respectfully demands. I’m happy to continue forming an impression of you solely through your comments; a sufficiently interesting person nonetheless.
No. Much broader in scope and more obscure. For those, and there aren’t many, that had the privilege of being variously assigned to a wide range of projects and analyzing business enterprises, it’s difficult to think of some aspect of business that I didn’t touch on at least at some point in time. One day mom and pop operations and the next day national publicly traded companies. Loved what I refer to as the green eye shades component and loathed what was considered “marketing.” The latter was more rewarded by employers that couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that schmoozing with clients destroyed an analyst’s objectivity. Most of the guys preferred the schmoozing because it was easier and thus, they were better at that. Not good, just better than their analytical abilities/skills.
Forensic accountant.
Interesting guess. Although I’m not an accountant, accounting is one of the tools/skill sets I use/have. Would guess that forensic accountants are among the best, but their work is post-action/events and I did more pre-action/events. Although performing post-action analyses was a good way to sharpen one’s pre-action skills.
A few years in, a couple of colleagues went back to school and became CPAs. Both ended up returning. Neither was very good at generating billings (the marketing component of that profession). Both were “green eye shades” types; one very good and one not so good. Another got his MBA and became a stock analyst. Encouraged me to make the same switch because the work isn’t all that much different.
That raises in interesting comparison. Who is the better writer and reporter, Bernstein or Woodward? Pete Hamill or Judith Miller? David Cay Johnson or Andrew Ross Sorkin? There’s a lot to be said for smart young people learning a craft by doing as apprentices to masters. What kind of writer would Mark Twain have become if he’d gone to Harvard?
I was trained by working class guys and among those that had college degrees can’t recall that any of them were in business. Early on I was assigned to a project that included McKinsey & Co consultants that were MBAs (and I assume from prestigious universities) because they claimed to have the high level business analyst skills that the company team members lacked. I kept asking for research from them and they kept coming back with opinions. The more they pushed for a go ahead on a billion dollar deal, the more we knew that something wasn’t adding up. We didn’t have the skills to sort it out; only our noses to guide us to seek out what we didn’t know. What an education. Years later I asked a colleague if he could recall how long it had taken me to go through a proposal he was interested in. He said, “If I exclude the time you spent laughing, about five minutes.” That proposal was a variation, and a very crude one, of what that old project had taught me. A couple of competitors scooped it up and ended up with serious losses.
There is a link through the PI’s report cited above to the North Korean Banco Delta Asia affair in 2005:
That’s just so revealing on a lot of levels. US leverage during the Bush administration, that China was the ultimate target, that the Chinese would immediately recognise the accuracy of reports of North Korean corruption and malfeasance, that they would seamlessly suspect US government and corporate co-operation. An interesting report to say the least, not to mention Sands’ implied role in helping secure the 2008 Olympics for their benefactors in the Central Government.
But by far, my favourite bit was from the WSJ article on North Korea’s negotiations with the US, this from the nation “accused by the U.S. in 1994 of passing hundreds of thousands of dollars in counterfeit U.S. currency into Hong Kong”:
LOL I laughed about that for days after I first read it. Whoops.
So, the CIA as “white hats” or “black hats?” Or both operating out of separate departments with no communication between the two?
The old-timers apparently called her “the grey lady.”
Its this kind of thing that makes vigilanteism seem viable.
Yeah, but…who you gonna vigilante first?
The ones running the various scams or the ones who are supposed to stop such scams but instead take payoffs left and right from scammer aftyer scammer?
It’s the real bosses who are to blame, and they’re not relatively penny-ante…compared to say the federal budget…relatively penny ante hustlers like Acheson. Who’s at the top of the real pile?
Lemme ask you this:
What federal organization enjoys complete secrecy regarding funding and profits?
Only the CIA and its related spook support systems as far as I know.
Ask yourself: “Cui bono?”
For REAL!!!
AG
P.S. And of course the Federal Reserve Bank.
Hmmmmm….
Reserved for whom?
Eh?
HMMMMMmmmm…
AG
This is phucking ridiculous