Fairway bag full of money / more plot recap retread

[Mark Kohut]

I also think we purposely know almost nothing about what Gabriel Ice is
doing in the Middle East.
Money has been moving to him and his businesses is all we know.

The way Pynchon is so focussing on money, money leading to money; perhaps a
theme of late capitalism as
so many have said: money makes money without ANY tangible product a lot of
the time.

I am withholding judgment (as Michael is on IF Maxine....)

On Sat, Feb 12, 2022 at 12:06 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> All this is possible( bought by the Russian mob), but we don’t get much
> reinforcement that I have seen, so I  put it in the highly speculative
> category. Madoff was offering the highest and most consistent Return on
> Investment  of anyone in the field and while it is likely that Igor is ex
> oligarch it is also possible his activities during Yeltsin led him to a
> bundle during the violence etc of that period.  He clearly has Russian mob
> connections so big money was invested with Madoff. Maxine has handed them a
> huge and timely financial windfall, both preventing loss and securing a
> huge return. Igor D would have every reason to keep her as a financial
> adviser  and so far she has done nothing illegal for him. She gives out
> other messages in the novel of not wanting to be owned by anyone or
> cooperate in anything she sees as crossing the line. She rides  along with
> March and March’s ex and his speed deal, but might not do that again after
> the chase in the bay. I think she is still far from being owned by the
> Russian mob and her only other involvement with these characters is to help
> M&G sabotage some Ice infrastructure.
>   Maybe she is on a slippery slope. And maybe she represents a certain
> aspect of the american citizenry caught between remaining
> ideals ( ideals quickly being shattered by her look under the hood) and
> the closer to home question of who, including her, will survive this game
> of contending criminalities.
>   One of the darker aspects of this recent scene is March’s involvement in
> drug dealing.
>   I think the Madoff angle is important. How can an investment firm used
> by the wealthy have no oversight,  and be paying those who cash out on
> their investments with investor money in a classic criminal Ponzi scheme.
> This was hardly limited to Madoff as the 2008 real-estate-fraud crash
> revealed. I think Pynchon is serious about late capitalism and pointing to
> where the ponzi schemes are moving next and how they will hide it. He
> doesnt bring in the game of taxpayer funded weapons sales which is the
> protection side of the criminality, but what the fuck do we think  Ice is
> doing in the Middle east?
>
>
>
> > On Feb 12, 2022, at 3:32 AM, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > So you’re saying that like Peter Minuit, Igor is buying off Maxine cheap,
> > like he already has corrupted Sid and Nancy - er, March?
> >
> > That’s another way to look at it. If so, then maybe Igor already had
> people
> > who knew about Madoff & was just tossing her an easy pitch, even pointing
> > out for her the same return month after month. Pulling her into his
> > organization but not at the level I was thinking.
> >
> > How does she know Igor again? Thru Slagiatt.
> > & how does she know Slagiatt again?
> >
> > His firm Streetlight People provided the venture capital (loans sharking)
> > for hwgaahwgh so - since Reg wasn’t paying her - she figured they might
> be
> > a possible client for her investigation into the hwgaahwgh financial
> > weirdness. So he treats her to an extravagant lunch, tries to give her a
> > $5,000 retainer, kind of likes her moxie.
> >
> > Slagiatt, NYC basically gangster, presumably reports in to Igor (Slagiatt
> > described Igor to Maxi as a fixer, but the limited edition limo says
> > oligarch) - as the Russians have taken over mob activity in NY, right? -
> > Igor decides she can be useful - and has Slagiatt set up the meeting at
> the
> > Omega Diner.
> >
> > Not as flattering to Maxine.
> >
> > But if Slagiatt is ready to cut a check for 5k, Igor’s got to outdo that.
> >
> > And a million in 100s is only 10 kg. That’s maybe a little heavy to pass
> > out a car window, but Igor’s ex-military and Maxine’s strong enough to
> pole
> > dance.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I may be projecting but I never thought it was close to that. I imagined
> >> some hundreds never organized tightly,
> >> stuffed in to look like a lot but really mostly air......
> >>
> >> Mark
> >>
> >> On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 3:59 PM Michael Bailey <
> >> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> How much in a grocery bag full of hundreds?
> >>> To save math & measuring I found this on what appears to be some kind
> of a
> >>> gaming site:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> https://bullypulpitgames.com/downloads/half-a-million-dollars-in-a-grocery-bag/
> >>>
> >>> “A stack of one hundred greasy street-worn bills, American, takes up
> 6.89
> >>> cubic inches, or 112 milliliters. A paper bag, like the one you get
> your
> >>> groceries packed in or like the one you are looking at right now, holds
> >>> 1,428 cubic inches, or just north of 23 liters. That’s 207.25 stacks of
> >>> cash if you filled it with mathematical perfection, “
> >>>
> >>> Igor wouldn’t bother with anything but 100s
> >>> 10000 x 200 = 2 million ?
> >>>
> >>> But it probably is more like half full.
> >>>
> >>> Still, a nice surprise for a working mother.
> >>> --
> >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>
> >>
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>