I was just thinking that in this modern day and age the worst job to have would be a Mob boss!
Under constant surveillance!
Can't be seen talking to any "work associates"!
Convinced everyone is wearing a wire!
Certain every room/phone is bugged!
Sure everyone in your own family is plotting against you!
Convinced you will end up in jail eventually!
Forced to creep around in the middle of the night and talk to everyone with your hand over your mouth!
Know for a fact that far from being a secret society everybody on the internet knows you are the boss!
Live in fear of being whacked!
Watch your sphere of influence dwindle away!
Petrified of the word RICO!
Live constantly with stress and ulcers!

Mob boss?
No fuckin thanks

I think there was a time-period when being a member of the mafia was worth the risk of being imprisoned, but nowadays being a member of the mafia has no advantages to it.

Absolutely the worst. See here for fuller discussion of the "honor" of being made--and multiply by 10 for the Boss:



http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=367602&page=1&fpart=1

The only thing that's worth the risk of being imprisoned for is protecting your wife and kids.

Outside of that there is nothing in the world that is worth the risk of being imprisoned.

In my opinion, Don Cardi, earning lots of cash and becoming a millionaire in less than five years is worth the risk of being imprisoned.

Do you really believe what you are saying? Have you really weighed the risk vs. reward factor? Considered everything that you give up and lose if you are imprisoned? How going to prison can and will affect the rest of your life, and affect the lives of those around you who love you, need you and may depend on you?

Is sacraficing all of that really worth becoming a millionare by getting yourself imprisoned?

Sounds to me that you're measuring success based on how much money you have and therefore would be willing to do ANYTHING, even something illegal, to achieve what you consider success.

I didn't say that I would do anything to earn more money; I just think that there was a certain time-period when being a criminal was profitable enough to risk being imprisoned.

Although the details are somewhat hazy, I recall reading the opinion of some writer or journalist (I forget who he was) with regard to John Gotti's imprisonment, and whether or not Gotti would have agreed that rising to the top of the Gambino Family was a good enough prize as to make being sentenced to life in prison with no parole seem worth it... and that (in the journalist's opinion) Gotti would have agreed that it was indeed worth it.

While contemplating such a question, we should keep in mind that there would be a welter of various circumstances and psychological (or psychopathological) factors that would influence the decision of any individual who contemplated such a trade off. For instance, to those who lived in a state of extreme poverty and wished to rise above it, it might seem like a small matter to risk one's (seemingly dead-end and worthless) life and (lack of genuine) freedom in order to come into a position of great wealth and power. All one needs to do is to consider the attitude of, say, a hard-bitten urban hoodlum who thinks that "get rich or die tryin'" is an apt slogan to live by, and an attitude very different than that of those whose lives are more mundane and comfortable comes into stark emergence.

If we examine the other end of the spectrum, we can also see that there are those take the very same risks out of a sense of altruism. The police officer who routinely risks his or her life for a relatively small payout, or a volunteer worker who goes into very dangerous localities out of a desire to help others would serve as examples of what I'm talking about here.

And then there's the aforementioned psychological makeup of each individual in question. One extreme would be the megalomaniacal personality who believes that he or she is simply the cat's ass and acts out of a need to reinforce that belief, and at the other end we might find one who suffers from a level of self-esteem so low that to surrender their life and freedom for an apparent great gain would absolutely seem worthwhile to them. And these are just two of the many psychological models that might suffice to motivate an individual to take great risks in order to satiate some personal need. The list is not endless, but it's a long one to be sure.

No two of us covet the same version of the Holy Grail as the next guy over; but we all tend to think we know it when we see it...

Sure sounded like you did to me!

But I think that now I know what you were really trying to say.

I agree!