> References:

> The 70-year-old retiree who became America’s worst counterfeiter. [link]

He evaded capture for 10 years, making him one of the best. Also got less than a slap on his wrist and ended up making legal money on the whole ordeal.

These days it is much more effective to pay employees to swap payment terminals (or just employees doing it themselves), changing where the money ends up, and banks don't really know what to do about it.

It feels like an increasingly common belief in the tech world, that "whoever dies with the most toys, wins." By such an account, this old man's cleverness, labor, and risk exposure must seem like the greatest squandering. So why should it attract our attention so, and without any apparent contradiction?

Perhaps our culture just contains multitudes like any other. Or perhaps, in addition, even the antithesis of a culture possesses an otherworldly charm to those who know nothing but that culture.