586 ChaPter^11
New Jersey mafia in the early 2000s did not have the same power as it did
generations earlier. When Tony’s lieutenants go into a Starbucks-type store to
demand protection money—a regular payoff from a business to the mob both
to protect it and as a promise not to harm it—they are told that it just was
not possible, that corporate headquarters counted every coffee bean and there
were no funds that could be used for a shakedown. In an entirely different
world, the hallowed halls of Columbia University, where Tony’s daughter
Meadow is a student, a Dean attempts an identical shakedown, asking Carmela
Soprano, Tony’s wife, for a $50,000 donation, which infuriates the mob boss.
In reality, the mafia and the university administrators, the show seems to sug-
gest, are not much different from one another [reminiscent of the scene in
Godfather II where Michael Corleone tells a senator that they are part of “the
same hypocrisy”].
But even as Tony is disgusted by that Ivy League world, where “medigans,”
a derisive term Italians use for Americans, have power, he wants to be part of
that group. His neighbor and physician, Dr. Bruce Cusamano, takes him golf-
ing at his country club and Tony asks about membership. The foursome
delights in Tony’s tales of mafia folklore, but ultimately Cusamano tells him
that there are no open slots for new members. All that notwithstanding, the
Soprano family’s main concern is money, a real issue for anyone in business
during the time the show ran—from the beginning of the dot.com bubble to
the downfall of the early 2000s. At one point, Tony is upset that his captains,
the mobsters who collect money on the streets, are not “earning” enough. In
a lecture to the family he and his consigliere, or counselor, Silvio Dante, lay it
on the line: “And I don’t want to hear about the freaking economy either!”
Tony says, “I don’t want to hear it. Sil[vio], break it down for them. What two
businesses have traditionally been recession proof since time immemorial?”
“Show business,” his counselor replies, “and our thing.” Tony ends the pep
talk by telling his crew, “frankly, I’m depressed and ashamed.”
Later, with words that one of the traders in Wall Street might have used, Tony
angrily lashed out, “I want to know why there’s zero growth in the family’s
receipts. Where’s the fucking money? You’re supposed to be earners. That’s
why you’ve got the top-tiered positions. So I want each one of you to go out
to your people on the street, crack some fucking heads, making some fucking
earnings out there.” In probably his most detailed exploration of the econo-
my, Tony gave a history lesson of sorts: