Back in the Godfather era, criminal dons lived as well as or comparable to celebrities, landed gentry or the upper class.

By the time Tony was eking out a living as boss it basically just got you into a good NJ school district and a Porsche Cayenne.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38136372)

And in that era, late 90s-right before 2008 crash + QE? Tony's dollar amounts bought a VERY nice lifestyle.

Today, of course, he'd have to murder Johnny Sack and take over that whole crew just to pay for Meadow at Columbia + AJ's rehab.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38136671)

"AJ, why doesn't your dad have that Don Corleone kind of money?"

AJ: "I dunno"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38136404)

Need to remember how carefully he had to wash his money through the Russians, who took a huge cut, so he couldn’t really spend freely on certain things or investments and things he could spend freely on he would probably go to extremes and piss the money away (eg food, booze, gambling, hookers). He was very high income but not wealthy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38136443)

Think about what $12k/month in cash does to finances. And that's just debt repayment. He probably spends more than that too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38136460)

This is a home in North Caldwell: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/160-Grandview-Ave-Caldwell-NJ-07006/38717018_zpid/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38137910)

Mail men make more than that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#42436231)

if tony invested like hesh he'd be 7, 8 figs easy, but instead gapes himself, mostly gambling

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38138502)

it is interesting though that at the root of just about every side hustle they did (webistics, HUD, the calling cards, etc) was a schmuck who got in over his head gambling that they could use as a patsy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38139684)

OTOH, didn't he plunk down some insane sum for Carmela's spec home like it was nbd, just to buy back their marriage?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38138977)

remember, carmella starts trying to flip houses because she realizes that they will be left with nothing if tony is sent to prison or dies. tony assumes that mafia codes means the remaining crew will provide for his family, but we know from the show that this doesn't really happen or at least it's not sustainable.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38138490)

He also is presumably paying rent and support to girlfriends

He also has millions in cash laying around in hiding places

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38139449)

Tony was probably pulling $300K-$500K as a capo and well north of $1M a year once he was boss and they got the big esplanade deal. As a capo, the Barrone Sanitation W-2 that he paid taxes on was probably like $125K so he could look UMC on paper and he probably really pulled at least twice that from them. Plus gambling and all the other bullshit and you start to get north of $300K.

As a boss, he was getting 7 figs in revenue just from construction though at that level you have a huge ass payroll you need to maintain (paying off the widows, cops, etc) and ultimately he always felt pressure to earn. Stuff like the HUD scams that made like a few hundred K and were super risky were still worth it to Tony though. Carmine was willing to go to war over it because he was an old stubborn asshole but Tony actually wanted the $.

Missing from all that is money from drug trafficking. I'm guessing they just left it out to make Tony more likable.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38139454)

Most of the mafia got out of the big-time drug distribution game in the 70's and 80's because of the heavy surveillance and big sentences.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38139516)

Upper class, his lifestyle was not. AJ's girlfriend was upper class.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38140218)

The Dominican chick was poor and to them the Sopranos seemed like they lived in the supreme lap of luxury. She also thought AJ's gangster connections were cool.

Basically anyone's interest in AJ ever at all had to do with his dad. Without that, he'd be nothing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38140236)

Back in the day the mafia was sort of revered or respected, they were viewed as low class criminals who didn't belong by Tony's era.

Jeannie Cusamano: "They're different, for this neighborhood."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38140254)

https://earth.google.com/web/@26.52734304,-80.04797801,13.34465972a,242.64573144d,35y,56.90227688h,44.98052609t,360r/data=ChcaFQoNL2cvMTFiOHpicXRfbRgCIAEoAg

https://www.almalnik.com/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#38148152)

He’s probably not mobbed up himself otherwise they wouldn’t let him in the NBA

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#39009153)

Carlo Gambino is the figure that comes to mind the most when it comes to living way below ones means - a man living modestly at home in a brick rowhouse with his elderly mother - despite controlling a vast empire. There was simply no way that they could accumulate vast landed estates or other outward signs of wealth without risking the attention of the Feds and other interested parties. Sort of like first scene when we see The Greek in The Wire - he was the guy no one paid attention to because he had the most to lose and was around for a very long time and knew the risks associated with even the slightest bit of flash or pride, but he was also by far the wealthiest and most powerful figure in the series.

In an earlier thread we also discussed the difference between The Godfather, Goodfellas and Sopranos - and how each was a different snapshot of Mob history or evolution/devolution throughout the course of the 20th century. Tony represented a figure that was, for good and bad, a relic and left behind from the old times. Yes he was prosperous, but he was only Upper Middle Class and was being overtaken or equaled in prosperity by other Italian Americans like his white collar professional "Wonderbread Wop" neighbors, the reason being that the Mob had weakened in many ways or had gone legitimate and he no longer had the prominence that he once enjoyed in his community, where he would have been the wealthiest and most socially prominent person by a country mile - a true "Don" in every sense of the word. Instead he was little more than a curiosity for Cusamano to trot out for his affluent buddies to observe and poke fun at.

I think that Tony was mentioned by Hesh as having 5-6 million (I would be really surprised if it was 5-600k but it is plausible) in net worth - however it is not surprising. The gambling and the women took huge chunks out of Tony's wealth but a lot of that represented expenses that came with the territory - he had to live like that because he was a boss, and bosses were expected to live like that or they weren't considered the boss, and thus appeared weak socially.

This pattern of compulsive socially pressured wasteful behavior is similar to the Potlach ritual of conspicuous consumption that was practiced by the North American/Canadian Native Americans and discussed by Von Velben in Theory of the Leisure Class, in my mind.

What really interested me was how The Sopranos was a snapshot of America and by extension the American Mob just before 9/11 all the way up to the 2008 crisis or so. It talks about real estate scams, development, house flipping and new types of fraud like HMO fraud as well in addition to old school gangster shit like jacking big scores.

Tony's problem was also that he also had no real cohesive vision for what to do with his wealth as his prime goal was to be boss and maintain his position first with his wealth viewed as a byproduct. This was his major flaw and contrasted with Hesh, who was able to build enormous wealth (on a relative basis) because he had vision and no aspirations to power.

Tony discusses this defect briefly when he mentions his father having significant real estate in what is now Tribeca but being unable to capitalize on it "but he couldn't see it" - Even though Tony did participate in real estate deals, he never really built or invested meaningfully and was always looking for a short term score or a maximum value extraction and flip (as with the HUD scam) however this is itself also predictable and expected given his precarious situation. You can't long term plan when you are afraid of getting shot down or sent to prison for life and you need maximum liquidity - with large cash holdings sitting and earning nothing.

I think what is more telling is that Tony's encounters with the stock market, of which there are quite a few. Webistics (a Dot Com pump and dump scam), mentions of investing with Cusamano's friends and Carmella's brief foray into it with his money all come to mind. In each case Tony is shut out in some way. With Webistics it is because it is a clear pump and dump fraud, just more of the same robbing. In the later scenes with Cusamano's friends, they are afraid to discuss their hot investment picks with him because they think he is not a social equal and will not understand it. With Carmella robbing him to invest, the prelude is Tony talking about how "we don't have those Enron type connections" - he immediately equates investing in the market as being another vehicle for fraud or scams and not as being a legitimate tool to build wealth.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4248001&forum_id=2#39011964)