I'm only a quarter Italian. You have to be full

Imagine how hard it is to make a legit living, finding work and all.

Now try doing the same thing but everything you do has to be illegal. Sure, it would be easier to not have to follow rules but no way are you going to go into the social club and brag about how you got a raise at the factory.

Most of those guys live a basic middle class life if that. Plus they have all the dangers of not only jail but getting wacked for some perceived slight.

Its stupid. just like how guys will die to protect some slum like its sacred ground or something. It makes no logical sense and only the oddest criminals will be drawn to it.

Its not like it is portrayed on tv. maybe for the bosses but the average street guy has it tough.

You'll just have to get over it, capisce?But they don't have to work. It's easy money, I think that's what draws them in

This day and age, it takes more effort to steal for a living and not get caught, than it does to just show up to your job and pretend to work like eod

Mafia today is nothing like it was in it's heyday. Too many informants, undercover agents, and rico really put a blow to it.

Like what, getting murdered, or rotting away in prison and losing all of your loved ones?

I think this happened organically because of looser laws at the time.

I was a delinquent from 14-20. Did not turn out well.

This. Mafia is basically dead. Plus that life was insanely stressful anyway. Much easier to be a drug dealer and just pay the mob the street tax (back in the day). But they were an elite level criminal organization for sure.

Go listen to Sammy the Bull or Michael Franceze podcast and tell me you want to walk in those shoes. It's not like the movies. They were all scumbags.

Jesus Christ OP. You make me wanna cry. It's a movie. You've gotta grow up, you're not a little kid anymore, you hear me? You've gotta grow up.

Maybe you need to watch the Sopranos again, and really pay attention. Then tell me the pros of being in the mob.

Look at Christopher for example, he was living in a one bedroom apartment. Look at the house Junior was living in. Paulie was living in a condo I believe, and to catch up on payments killed an old lady.

where's the gabagool?


srs.

I never really enjoyed either, but I thought The Godfather 1+2 were great movies just for being great movies.

In real life, it is much more grim then the movies, and the people involved range from being very poor to very, very wealthy. The Mexican cartels like the Sinaloa Cartel or the Guadalajara Cartel were inspired by the Sicilians, who are now the 'Ndrangheta. Of course there are billionaire drug lords and many smaller millionaires, and there are also a ton of poor villagers being paid small sums of money to kill people, run drugs, or being forced at gunpoint to farm drugs for very cheap.

The movies make it look like something it isn't, because most of it is very sad situations in very impoverished regions, but some customers are very wealthy people with drug habits or who solicit prostitutes. There are also many levels, from small street gangs formed as survival units, to international syndicates with billionaires and revenues larger than many famous multinational corporations.

Much of the opportunity is the fact that the USA has the highest drug consumption in the world, as well as a largest consumer economy in the world. Cannabis is now virtually legal across the entire USA, and much of it is produced domestically. America's appetite and addiction for hardcore drugs like *******, heroin, meth, mdma, and others have created and fueled the Mexican cartel system. Naturally, this goes hand-in-hand with the flow of guns and prostitutes, who are often addicted to drugs along with those who solicit prostitutes.

If you think joining a gang is a good idea, whether it's a biker gang or cartel or street gang or whatever, you have to be in a bad position in life. If there are little to no job or career or education prospects, if you have an empty fridge and kids to feed, if your family and community is hooked on drugs or homeless or in jail, it might make sense or at least be tempting in your mind to just squeeze the trigger and kill a motherf*cker to be set for life. It's not so different selling drugs, like serious deadly and addictive drugs and not like bags of weed or something. That crack or meth or heroin or whatever is killing people in the community, but it's "easy money" that someone can do to make thousands or way more in a day.

I'd say most people aren't in a position where it makes sense to join a gang. Additionally, not everyone is built in a manner to take chances on prison or to endure the death, horror, and sheer slaughter of the streets. Day by day, night by night, shots ringing out in the air, the daily routine of murder for cash money as prayers are sent for the souls of the defeated. It is a form of pure competition for survival, it is a warlike existence, like how wolves or lions compete for food. Basically, everyone wants to be a gangster until it's time to do some gangster chit, and gangster chit is a tragedy created by the hidden horrors of human society.

Is this about the Easter Baskets?

because some cultures are just meant to be appropriated and not emulated

I know some people. Those types will be your good buddy until you do business with them. Then you owe them everything you got. Like vampire, they suck everything right out of you. Remain friendly. Don’t do business.