As a teenager, a friend’s dad sent a gift package that included a tape of the testimony of a NJ crime boss turned Christian. Here at Stremf HQ, we've always been huge fans of the oral story tradition (Yo, Beowulf raps!), and we'll listen to just about any story if it's either a) interesting or b) told in an interesting manner

This includes churchy testimonies. Most of the content of this crime boss done good was dismissible save one line. He said, "It's always just as easy to make an honest dollar as a dishonest dollar." A little bit of thought about this statement since makes us think it's true more times than false. The following cases provide evidence:

Evidence for:

Two high school “skater” friends. Two charming and affable guys who, at times, burned a lot of calories to make $20 or $50 on a deal.

The small time criminals and junkies who plot, scheme and hustle to make much less than minimum wage on an hourly basis

Evidence against:

Madoff. The guy was obviously a talented salesman and smart. Could he have done that on the right side of Johnny Law? Doubtful. See also: Milken, etc.

It seems to shake down like this: for blue collar crime it seems to be an issue of laziness. Our high school friends didn't make much money. But, they could stay stoned and play Mario Kart in perpetuity. On the other end, it seems there's a ceiling on what people can do legally; or, rather, a bonus for stepping outside the law.

Questions for our gentle readers:

1. What's your take?

2. If you were to turn to a life of crime what do you think you could pull down?

3. Bonus question: how would you do it?

Some thoughts:

The benefits of a criminal lifestyle closely mirror the benefits of a manual laborer lifestyle. You can live very well from 16 to 22 by being sheisty and taking advantage of the trust and kindness of others. But things start to break down very quickly after that, particularly since I think people are far less tolerant of shenanigans once you are very clearly an adult. High school criminals would have a more difficult, if not impossible, time trying to connive a free meal at 30 than they did at 18.

Generally speaking, I think it is more difficult to make a dishonest dollar, due to the low barriers to entry and the rock-bottom discount rate of the other players in the market (ex-cons). White collar crime is a little better bet, since there are some barriers to entry, typically in the form of knowledge of an industry. Those mortgage guys (not the Wall Street guys, the dishonest Main Street guys) deserve to go to jail for what they did, and I honestly think unethical financial advisors are barely a rung up the criminal ladder. Selling products that are more expensive and perform no better to unwitting doctors is not an honest living.

If you have to commit to a life of crime in the classic sense, it seems drugs are where the money is at. A little bit of foresight, an ounce of planning, and a lifetime of not using the drugs could net you a tidy profit. It seems like you could easily make $50k with almost no risk of going to jail. Going big brings serious risk of jail time, but as far as earnings, sky's the limit.

White collar crime is a little bit harder to pinpoint. In my industry, insider trading would pay off handsomely, but getting into a similar position when starting from zero would take at least six years of focused planning and a bit of luck. If you did make it in, you could pretty quickly make enough profit that you could chill in Baja for the foreseeable future, by buying options on deals that you know are going to be announced. Let's call our annual profit $500k, although you'd be risking real jail time.

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