this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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There's a saying, in many different communities, even some white supremacist communities (but that's a story for another day) that says "Success isn't earned, it's given". I've been thinking about that quote a lot with all this Epstein stuff going around. There seems to be some truth to it. They couldn't have possibly all earned their billions. It takes having to have blackmail on you.
I've never read a good explanation as to how Epstein amassed his gigantic money horde. And reporters seem to have been insanely lazy in their efforts to find out. They always write that he somehow "convinced" a few billionaires into giving him train cars full of cash. They never say how.
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Ninja edit
Here's a ~9,000 word NYT article from last week: Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich. I assume it's shit but I'll read it tomorrow anyway. I want to know but I assume it's like every other shit article I've read. It's filled with generalities and vagueness. I swear - some media outlets and journos write this shit to try to impress each other. Just give the public under 1,000 words and get to the fucking point. And if you're going to mention his mysterious billionaires connection without explaining it yet again - put that in your first paragraph so we know your reportage is copypasta crap.
Best I've gotten so far is(not including from that article) that he was a teacher... So yeah. Utterly fucking useless piles of shit media. Though it is a weird coinky-dink that western media is literally owned by the Epstein class.
I assumed the article would be bad but the NYT surprised me. On a scale of 1 to 10 - I rate it a zero.
The article is fucking awful and it beggars belief. I only managed to read about a couple thousand words but I was already highly annoyed and irritated. I'm shocked at how awful it is. Besides it being garbage - they blindside the reader with a gigantic mass of information, details, and names. You'd need a flowchart to keep track and it would still be a gigantic slog to follow their ever meandering narrative.
What's fascinating and notable is that they don't say there was no evidence of a blackmail operation. They make it seem that any pooh-pooh any reasonable guess about Epstein's wealth is being a "conspiracy theory".
The NYT actually pretends Epstein became a billionaire because he had "many extraordinarily lucky breaks" and that he was "a prodigious manipulator, liar, and scammer".
Teacher + Brains + Billionaire connections + Investments + Hustle = Self-made billionaireThe average person looks at that as nonsense but that's because we haven't been to j-school and we have no idea how to understand that really fancy journalism math.