I’ve seen the Steve Bannon interview of Epstein exposing Epstein’s vaunted “financial acumen”. What the interview revealed was that Epstein was a clever bullshit artist . He wasn’t smart enough to have earned all the money he gave away. Someone gave it to him.
Because fluency and skill in finance at the most complicated level seems to be a rare thing, I'm not sure how many of us are really capable of judging his particular acuity. My own conclusion is that he mostly had access to an unlimited supply of funds, somehow. I just haven't seen evidence of his wizardry, but I'm willing to learn of it. I second the appreciation below of your critique of his writing style.
(finally able to subscribe using a gift card! Thank you at last, substack)
ETA: Please let us know if you will be in Berkeley 3/6-3/14.
“Noam Chomsky claimed to be impressed by Epstein’s intelligence, and by the quality of his conversation. I’m a writing snob: jeevacations@gmail.com could barely produce a grammatically correct, complete sentence across three million emails. Most of Epstein’s missives contain at least one egregious misspelling.”
So good! How little the linguist thought of human intelligence after all…
Glad to have the Catherine Lui take on this while sordid affair! That's an interesting tidbit about Epstein lacking a college degree. I hadn't heard that, as I've attempted to insulate myself from all the minutae and not follow the depravity too closely for my own sanity. No college degree but his own at office at Harvard (or was it MIT?) must've been quite the thrill for this creep; and for well respected academics and other professional smart people to come to him for counseling (aka bribes) he must have been as happy as a pig in slop. God how I loathe these people. But I worry about getting too caught up with Epstein, much like getting too caught up with trump in best avoided cause it could thwart out seeing the forest for trees. Ultimately Epstein's personality, and hobbies and outside interests are pointless. Instead we should be looking more closely at the endlessly entangled web of his fellow child rapists and super wealthy that don't have the name recognition. Because even though paedophilia and rape exist across practically all societies and cultures and classes and facets of life. That he, and so many got away with it so egregiously and for so long, is ultimately reliant on our abusive and dysfunctional capitalist system.
Excellent essay. I’m looking forward to part two. One thing that I’m thinking about in connection with all of this is General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay. He used to visit high schools in Paraguay and look for the most attractive young cheerleaders and majorettes. (A common activity in Central and South America.) He would find the ones he fancied and make them move into his palace where he raped them over and over. When he was done with them, he would make one of his colonels marry them. And then move onto another. The CIA, of course, knew all about this. Henry Kissinger loved him.
Been longing to read your take on this. As always, you cut through the crap and reveal what’s really been going on.🙏
the gavel comes down SMACK in endorsement of this accomplished essay.
I’ve seen the Steve Bannon interview of Epstein exposing Epstein’s vaunted “financial acumen”. What the interview revealed was that Epstein was a clever bullshit artist . He wasn’t smart enough to have earned all the money he gave away. Someone gave it to him.
Because fluency and skill in finance at the most complicated level seems to be a rare thing, I'm not sure how many of us are really capable of judging his particular acuity. My own conclusion is that he mostly had access to an unlimited supply of funds, somehow. I just haven't seen evidence of his wizardry, but I'm willing to learn of it. I second the appreciation below of your critique of his writing style.
(finally able to subscribe using a gift card! Thank you at last, substack)
ETA: Please let us know if you will be in Berkeley 3/6-3/14.
“Noam Chomsky claimed to be impressed by Epstein’s intelligence, and by the quality of his conversation. I’m a writing snob: jeevacations@gmail.com could barely produce a grammatically correct, complete sentence across three million emails. Most of Epstein’s missives contain at least one egregious misspelling.”
So good! How little the linguist thought of human intelligence after all…
Glad to have the Catherine Lui take on this while sordid affair! That's an interesting tidbit about Epstein lacking a college degree. I hadn't heard that, as I've attempted to insulate myself from all the minutae and not follow the depravity too closely for my own sanity. No college degree but his own at office at Harvard (or was it MIT?) must've been quite the thrill for this creep; and for well respected academics and other professional smart people to come to him for counseling (aka bribes) he must have been as happy as a pig in slop. God how I loathe these people. But I worry about getting too caught up with Epstein, much like getting too caught up with trump in best avoided cause it could thwart out seeing the forest for trees. Ultimately Epstein's personality, and hobbies and outside interests are pointless. Instead we should be looking more closely at the endlessly entangled web of his fellow child rapists and super wealthy that don't have the name recognition. Because even though paedophilia and rape exist across practically all societies and cultures and classes and facets of life. That he, and so many got away with it so egregiously and for so long, is ultimately reliant on our abusive and dysfunctional capitalist system.
I will try to contextualize in next post
Damn right!
Excellent essay. I’m looking forward to part two. One thing that I’m thinking about in connection with all of this is General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay. He used to visit high schools in Paraguay and look for the most attractive young cheerleaders and majorettes. (A common activity in Central and South America.) He would find the ones he fancied and make them move into his palace where he raped them over and over. When he was done with them, he would make one of his colonels marry them. And then move onto another. The CIA, of course, knew all about this. Henry Kissinger loved him.
From what I hear Stressner is still viscerally hated to this day by the masses of Paraguay.