Bobby is a good poster who doesn't deserve that shit.

I have no idea what he did, nor do I care. He served his debt.

I agree. He's one of the best posters here, but he completely misunderstood what I said.

How is this an argument? A couple drug crews versus 5 families all with 150+ guys? They might have made more drug money than the families but once you factor in bookmaking, shy, unions, legitimate businesses, ect it's not even close.

You could say that a thousand times and those kids in here wouldn't even be close to getting it. It's fun to see their responses though.

That's not the issue. The issue has been addressed.

Wow this blew out of proportions quickly. I wonder why it became 3 pages so quickly. Hopefully everyone will be level headed by now. Let's continue gentlemen...

@ Ivy
Speaking in the short time frame (late 60s to mid 70s) and specifically in the drug racket , I would say that only Frank Matthews Syndicate & to a lesser extent the North Carolina Mob was comparable or more than the NYC families drug business. Yes the NYC metro is the largest in our country but having an operation within 21 states is far more of a whale. North Carolina Mob I'm not sure but the revenues from their smuggling operation was vast as well. As it already been said by you and others that when including the other rackets it's not comparable in which I agree.
Now you have stated the Italians have that criminal tradition which your right and I have mentioned it in another post. The group's identity is an off-shoot from Siciliy and have been active for decades before coming to America. Criminal groups that been in existence for at least 20 years & spread to other areas tend to adapt to times. So your wrong in referring to the Chinese as new groups when they been active prior to LCN formation but just a looser or different hierarchy coupled with limited expansion ( they just don't care to leave Chinatowns). America's traditional groups will be the 1%ers, Prison Mobs, & Street Gangs. These are our homegrown groups that have no foreign roots.

@ CabriniGreen
Brother take a break , LoL. I've my numerous debates and enlightments on Black Organized Crime and the beat keeps on.

@ Ralphie
Black Organized Crime are footnotes mainly because the "scholars, police, Feds , & criminologist " of those times didn't believe it's possible due to the "Jim Crow" mentality. Therefore you have a tremendous lack of historic research that's overlook. YouTube "Black Mafia" by Sean Patrick Griffin and listen to how he stated that his peers reaction to his reaction. There's many active Black syndicates throughout the our country but they don't have an collective identity such as the " inset name of old age syndicate". Outside of the drug trade, Me & Scorsese have posted up different black groups focus on gambling, prostitution, murder for hire, chop shops, extortion, & fraud. On a worldwide scale you can't overlook the Nigerian syndicates since they spreaded out their networks faster than most other syndicates.

In regards to historical Harlem & Bumpy Johnson being the front for the Genovese, I could view that being true. Even though that was a short span for the Italians overall since the Black racketeers regain full control of the numbers into the rest of the 60s & so on.

I do have a question

was there ever time in the past where the Five Families combined could rival the Sicilian Mafia in power, influence, money etc.?

No. A 5 collective vs 100+ collective. Even when you the entire LCN it still doesn't compare in terms to size with the Sicilian CN.

Frank Lucas was a genius because no one knew who the fuck he was. I was around the heroin business since I was in my teens in East Harlem. I never even heard of Frank Lucas till the movie came out.

I knew of Nicky Barnes and I knew of Bumby Johnson. You most likely never heard of Philip Wu he went to my grammar school. He was another guy that bought his dope from the same place where Lucas got his dope.

A genius in the dope business is someone you probably never heard of not someone you have heard of.

ehh People knew who Al Capone was, and yet he still was extremely successful and only got caught on tax returns

The point I tried to make was don't get caught. You get caught when your picture goes on an FBI wall. Capone was not successful enough. He wound up in prison.

Absolutely. I think that the Five Families at their peak from the 1930s to the 1960s were bigger than the Sicilian clans in terms of power and influence. In the 1950s, Joe Bonanno and others were asked to help the Sicillians set up their own Commission. And when Luciano was sent back to Italy, he was hailed as a celebrity. Back then I think that the Italians looked up to the Americans and that alone says enough. That being said, I think that starting in the late 1970s the Sicillians surpassed the Americans on a global scale.

How old are you what has Obama done that was great?

Unemployment is down? They keep moronic unemployment records today. Let's say you can't find work and stop looking. To the government your no longer unemployed. Go on welfair and stop looking. Your no longer unemployed.

Remember he spent billions on shovel ready construction jobs that never were built.

The electric car government bought with tax payer money it went under.

That great peace deal with Iran?

We are getting the extra bathroom for transgenders. They are 0.03 percent of our population maybe.

Obama hates fracking it is a fact that fracking limits greenhouse gases.

This bozo did what for the country again?

Footreads, before you derail another topic with your Anti Obama shit, please tell me how fracking "limits greenhouse gases".

Ralphie poster said that. I was just answering him.

On the fracking thing what am I a scientist? Someone said it on the news. I am pretty sure Thrump will use it when he debates crooked Hillary.

If you are going to post scientific things, you might as well have evidence...

What you said is not true.

I'm aware the Chinese have been in the US since before they built the railroads. When I say "new," I'm doing so in the same context as the feds do when they refer to them and other groups as "new" or "emerging" to distinguish from "traditional organized crime" or the LCN. It's a context that deals more with the state of Chinese OC since the 1970s.

People over estimate the effect a president has short term on the economy . We are still in a debt bubble but the commercial piece has yet to pop , once interest rates start to rise (will take some time ) these companies will have to refinance at higher rates as most companies debt profile forces them to re fi and kick the can further down the road rather than pay off- this will further eat into profits and this pay and benefits. We have pulled a lot of future economic productivity forward and we can still barely grow , crazy .

Obamacare is not ideal but with our aging population it had to be done as companies post credit crisis just aren't providing the health care benefits they used to . If you think obamacare is bad , think 15 years from now where seniors are the biggest part of our population and over 30% have no health insurance.

Just wait until the pension crisis hits per the above - pension plans are basically bankrupt and 2% rates will just bankrupt them quicker - expect more chapter 9 bankruptcies to reduce pension obligations . While we don't have a perfect fix for health care at least most people will have it , I feel bad for future presidents as the retirement crisis is going to be a disaster - rich vs poor etc. etc.

A lot of our problems stem from a slow to no growth environment where the majority just aren't making $. It seems many of our problems are solved when our country grows as we get our 3-4% raises, our 401K is up and our home prices are up . With this I give Obama some credit as most of his focus has been on Asia - the one region that actually buys our goods and will be a partial solution to our economic problems - instead of focusing all our time on the Middle East and Russia whom do about nothing for us except soak our resources and energy. Wouldn't it have been nice to take the $3T+ on Iraq to have plugged our social security as that is something I don't think out country can do without and we will find this out soon enough unfortunately.

By no means a perfect president but I give him credit for thinking long term about the health care crisis and about reigniting our economy down the road via Asia . Perfect solutions ? Hell no but foundations to build upon ? Probably yeah . He was dealt a pretty crappy hand truth be told and I'm no democrat , just a realist that likes to figure things out rather than complain and blame someone which for som reason we seem to be doing a lot more of

Pension crisis will be a mess , really hope someone can figure that out

I recall reading somewhere that Matthews was supplied by LCN - some reason Ralph Tutino comes to mind - and his supposed Corsican pipeline was something that never came to fruition due to his untimely disappearing act. I'll try to dig up the source.

Where is your evidence saying it is not true means nothing without backing it up with scientific proof.

He did a lot of for America and the world. Below is a link where 358 Obama accomplishments are listed.

http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/

That's where I challenge the context of the FBI for using " traditional organized crime" and how are these groups " new"? Sounds like the FBI have been "overlooking" or " misjudging" these groups' activities. I don't understand the labeling of LCN as "traditional" when their roots aren't " American" but assimilated.

A lot of that stuff is fluff but the guy did some good , denying any president did anything good is just being a hater .

Btw while I think the Iraq war was our biggest policy mistake at least since the Vietnam , I fully supported GWB attempt to privatize social security as at least we would get something ( would of been an additional 12% of income per year and removing the long term liability from the govt balance sheet ) . Got to give him credit for trying to fix the upcoming disaster . Pension crisis could tear this country apart

I watched a recent interview of him, he claims he never sold drugs, he just financed it. Where he got his initial money he never spoke of. He really came of as an idiot, even when he was discussing basketball.

Its called saying alot but saying nothing at the same time. Doesnt want to implicate anyone in anything. He got his initial money from robbing jewelry stores

whats the consensus on this question?