I really cannot understand how those mob guys view "money". Many of them don't have education and some even got legitimate businesses without ever studying. How that happens that most normal and educated people work low paying jobs, and uneducated mobster got businesses. I'm not talking just about the shakedowns, I've read some of the mobsters actually ran pretty big and successful businesses that were legal.
A lot of them got those businesses because the owner became indebted to them and couldn't pay. Or, even if a gangster starts his own legitimate business, he has an advantage over other businessmen. Are you going to turn him in if he is violating regulations? And some of those businesses might just be to launder the tax free money they are getting from illegal sources. I think some of them have business expertise, but a lot of them are just stealing other's hard work.
