Heard he was great friends with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
And whoever said all those children were actually his kids.
Weapons trafficking
Submitted 1 day ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to memes@sopuli.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3408c783-346b-4a3e-a07a-07f62e58547c.jpeg
Comments
MangioneDontMiss@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
TBH that would explain the Trump Cameo. It’s all about who you know.
EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Real answer: insurance salesman in the 90’s.
This was a slightly exagerated, but rather typical upper-upper-middle class house.
A friend of a friend’s dad had the same job, and a similar sized house. Guy had his own pinball room.
He also had a daughter that was in a secret relationship with my girlfriend (that they thought I didn’t know about.)
Scissor-box it out with your “friend” all you want, free pinball is free pinball.
Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Pinball is life. Forrest Gump got it wrong. Life is not like a box of chocolates. It is like a pinball game. You’re bouncing around like crazy and then suddenly it all ends when you go down the drain…
HiTekRedNek@lemm.ee 2 hours ago
Know what else is like pinball?
Kidney stones. Definitely feels like you’re getting your balls thrown into a lot of shit.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 5 hours ago
Used to work in a life insurance company and the president bragged about how the top sellers got more money that him.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 day ago
His dad was an exec, and his mom was a fashion designer. They either alluded to, or outright said what his dad’s profession was, and the only reason to have those mannequins sitting around is if someone is designing clothing.
His parents had money.
InputZero@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It was also the 90s. To anyone who didn’t live it I can not overstate how many benefits the McCallister adults had. Not even from the government just the world. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, China hadn’t risen yet and Europe had just finally recovered from WWII. America was at the end of being uncontested internationally for 50 years and had another decade to go before it all starts to crumble. Being middle class in the United States meant you had a good paying job, not the single bread winner jobs of decades before but wayyy better than what most people are offered now. It was a very different time.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Remember how Homer Simpson was supposed to be a loser? Owning a 2 story house in the suburbs and supporting a family of 5 on a single salary? The 90’s hit different.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Ask any U.S. Boomer for career advice, and you’ll see how true this is. Who else was advised to “go straight to the boss” when applying for a job?
Double points if you were then directed to apply on a website.
Triple points if you told your parents that you had to do the entire process online, and they didn’t believe you.
LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 23 hours ago
However, the uncle was the one that paid for the vacation, as he had even more money.
I feel like I saw some BTS story about how the Home Alone canon was that it was in repayment for another vacation Kevin’s dad paid for.
Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
According to everything I read his father was listed as a prominent man in business, but the script doesn’t go further than that. Yes, the script says the mother was a fashion designer, but doesn’t say for what company, or anything more specific than that.
Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
They didn’t say more because it’s fashion you wouldn’t understand
mannycalavera@feddit.uk 23 hours ago
Uncle Buck?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Some other 90’s TV shows and movies:
The Simpsons. Homer owns a 2 story house and supports a family of 5 (at least sometimes 6, with his father Abe) and two pets on a single income as a nuclear safety officer.
Christmas Vacation. Clark Griswold works as a chemical engineer at a food company working on such projects as a coating for cereal to keep it crunchy longer. There’s no indication that his wife works. He supports a family of 4, owns a large house, takes frequent lengthy vacations and has enough disposable income to install an in-ground swimming pool…assuming his typical year-end bonus.
Married…With Children. Al Bundy is a retail shoe salesman, his wife does not work. He owns a 2-story house and supports a family of 4.
A single breadwinner owning a large house and supporting a family with disposable income didn’t used to be hilariously unrealistic.
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 8 hours ago
But Al Bundy was constantly out of money. His paycheck went straight to Peg who wasted it on fashion, on herself and useless stuff. The children had to steal food because Peg or Al never cooked at home. At some point Al made a joke that life won’t get worse if they sue them for money, because he already has 2 mortgages on the house, his car is junk and he has no valuables and no savings to take away.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
So he could be in a good financial place if his wife didn’t deliberately sabotage him.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
The implausible part about Homer’s job wasn’t the salary, it was the fact that he was in charge of safety at a nuclear plant despite being completely unqualified. Lenny and Carl both have Masters’ Degrees in Nuclear Science.
Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 18 hours ago
The post-WW2 greatest generation lifestyle was something else. Not to say that all WW2 veterans were well-off (WW2 veterans had a LOT of PTSD and many never recovered from wartime trauma), but increased housing development meant cheap houses for many people. A lot of houses of that time left a lot to be desired in modern terms (like some bathrooms had slots to put used safety razors in, but had no way of emptying them out…), but far more people than ever were actually able to afford homes.
ZeffSyde@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
My mother’s house had one of these pleasant looking Razor Disposal Slots in a medicine cabinet. When we redid the bathroom there was just a pile of ancient rusty razor blades behind the wall.
Boomer era foresight. They probably dumped their used engine oil into holes in the back garden as well.
Aganim@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’ll happily trade your razor blade slot for the crumbling linen-covered iron electrical wiring inside metal pipes in our 50’s house. Don’t worry, we are busy replacing it all. But if I’m suddenly permanently offline our house probably burned down. 😋
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 15 hours ago
A nuclear safety officer and a chemical engineer are both quite high paying jobs, it’s not that far fetched even today that someone could support a family with that job.
If Al Bundy owns his business, it’s also not very far fetched that a retail store could support a family.
Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Chemical engineering is among the highest paying engineering fields.
WEAPONX@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Al Bundy did not own the shoe store. It was owned by a woman called Gary if i remember correctly.
ajmaxwell@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Mom is a fashion designer, hence all the mannequins.
And the trip was paid for by his brother living in Paris because his work transferred him there.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yup. Every time this post comes up I’m reminded that people don’t know the plot very well and are still unaware of their gender bias.
raltoid@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I really wish this stupid meme would die.
They say it and refer to it multiple times during the opening: THE UNCLE THEY ARE VISITING IS THE ONE PAYING FOR THE VACATION.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean, that’s fine. But also it implies significant generational family wealth.
The point is that Kevin’s family is loaded. Dad’s likely an investment banker, mid-level corporate executive, white shoe lawyer, or other high income profession. And he comes from a family with similar wealth and status, such that they can afford to shell out five figures on an extended vacation abroad.
I think this is alluded to in the class character of Kevin himself, who seems fairly comfortable playing the spoiled rich kid, but is initially terrified and disoriented when presented with people living in poverty.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I wouldn’t say loaded. They’re upper middle class. They put the kids in coach while the parents flew first class. If they were loaded they’d all be flying in a private jet.
tauren@lemm.ee 1 day ago
That doesn’t explain the house and so many children though.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
Most of the kids were family members visiting. Do we even know which kids were just part of the main family that lived in the house other than Buzz and Kevin?
psmgx@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What does / did the uncle do, then?
raltoid@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I don’t remember it being revealed what Rob’s job is, but he is transferred from New York to Paris. And it’s his former townhouse that is used in Home Alone 2.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 day ago
Sell cocaine in Paris, probably
jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Stole Kardashian jewelry.
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Also, the answer is banking/finance.
dicksteele@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Was born at the right time
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 19 hours ago
The question is not what you do, but when.
If you did the same job you do today 50 years ago, you’d get massively better pay for it.
negativenull@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This house is currently worth about $5.5 million.
www.zillow.com/homedetails/…/3360197_zpid/toastmeister@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Dang thats really close to Lake Michigan.
Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
You assume they were his children. I mean he might have just been doing an Epstein.
tea@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
From what I remember, only a few of the kids on the trip were his, the rest were cousins. His wealthy(er) brother was the one flying them to Paris at his expense. Also he was the one sitting on a ridiculously 3 story brownstone in Manhattan. I don’t believe we meet the brother in the films. Kevin’s mom was supposed to have been the substantial breadwinner in the house as a fashion designer.
merc@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
It’s not just Home Alone for me. Almost every show I watch, I look at the places where the characters live with immense envy.
Lord of the Rings: Man, I’d love to live in that hobbit house. That looks incredibly cozy.
Daredevil: That is such a nice loft, and it has such great light. It’s unfair that a guy who’s blind doesn’t truly appreciate his great apartment because he can’t see.
Futurama: Fry’s a delivery boy and he lives in a robot’s closet, and it’s still better than where I live.
Only Murders in the Building: NYC and these guys have those kinds of amazing places? (To be fair, this is a major plot element of the 4th season)
Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Futurama was wicked funny how they introduced that. It seemed like it was gonna suck big time for fry to live in a closet sized ‘apartment’ but that ‘apartment’ had a closet that was bigger than most big ass apartments!
ZeffSyde@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Pretty much any Artist Loft in the 90s.
Bitch, you have enough room to have a softball tournament in your front room, quit complaining about how 'rough ’ the neighborhood is.
alphamule@lemm.ee 18 hours ago
It was a pretty nice closet, to be fair.
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I’ve noticed this too. In movies and TV, its not just the people that are beautiful, often times, its their material wealth too.
merc@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Yeah, and it sometimes makes sense just from an acting PoV, so you can forgive it. It’s hard to fit all the characters and cameras in a scene if someone lives in a typical cramped apartment. So, like in the Friends TV show, none of them has jobs that should indicate they’re rich. But, the sets they use for the apartments suggest they have huge apartments. In that show, Joey’s apartment isn’t beautifully furnished, it looks fairly cheap. But, it’s really spacious for NYC. But, it seems like it’s all about giving the director the freedom to frame shots to get everybody involved, and to allow characters to move around.
OTOH, A recent movie, “Black Bag” was terrible for this. I hated the movie because it was just impossible to believe. This guy, who’s supposed to be a British intelligence officer (i.e. living on government wages). His wife is also an intelligence officer. Yet, somehow, they live in this condo that looks like it would be about £5m to buy, or about £5000/month. Since the plot revolves around whether one of them is a traitor and is selling state secrets, it seems pretty obvious it’s this guy or his wife because no civil servant is living in a place like that on just a government salary.
BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
well daredevil’s place would suck for anyone who can see because of the giant led billboard shining right into the place
merc@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
I remember that from S1, but it doesn’t show up in S2, does it? Maybe they took it down?
Flickerby@lemm.ee 15 hours ago
It’s hard to fit a camera crew in a realistically sized house
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Money laundering. The trip was an excuse to meet with his associates without arousing suspicion.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 23 hours ago
Definitely Health Insurance CEO.
andybytes@programming.dev 13 hours ago
Weapons contractor
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Ever seen Snake Eyes with Nic Cage? Kevin’s Dad killed the SecDef and was a weapons dealer.
BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Wasn’t he supposed to be a neurosurgeon?
demizerone@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
The fascists going to ban this movie to keep the rabble for dreaming about anything more than a hole in the ground.
JustJack23@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Child trafficking, let’s be clear 9 children are not that many to count.
zephorah@lemm.ee 1 day ago
The surgeon who performs illegal organ transplants.
Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s the Chicago suburbs, it’s not that surprising
billwashere@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Drugs. He sold drugs.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 1 day ago
Shhhhh… Not a word
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
They were all foster kids and the government gave them like $1,000 a month per kid. He was making 6 figures before even counting his job money.
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Private equity or high finance would be the easiest path
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 day ago
This is just how things worked back when unions were in the equation. If you sold TVs or drove a truck for a living, you got a house. If you had a good job, you had a house like this and basically everything you wanted.
We traded that life for a few hundred people having yachts instead.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 1 day ago
My mom worked in a factory, my dad has been chronically unemployed and her parents worked at a food cart.
We owned a 3 story house with two kitchens, four bathrooms, and six bedrooms for $70k in the hood. Gentrification happened and it’s worth a million now.
I make double what my mom makes, and with the combined salaries of my wife, we still rent.
zephorah@lemm.ee 1 day ago
People insisting trickle down economics worked, when, in fact, it tricked up into the pockets of Bezos and the Waltons.
someguy3@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
It trickles up almost by definition.
exasperation@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I don’t think the McAllisters were in union jobs. I think they were pretty high up the tier of management.
People talk about union jobs going away, but don’t forget, non-unionized middle management has totally been gutted by outside consultants over the same time period. So the changes in the workforce have hurt the earning power of both the line workers and the middle managers who used to make up the middle class.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 day ago
Hm, I’m not really all that expert on the topic, but I feel like people in union jobs making enough of a salary to buy a comfortable home is going to drive up wages for everyone, even the people who have nothing to do with it.
Of course, UPS drivers are making $175k/yr right now, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot stopping other companies for paying people in milk for doing the exact same job. My feeling is that it’s an issue of critical mass, but like I say that’s more or less just a guess.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Union membership in the US was at 16% in 1991. Obviously that’s better than today’s 10%, but that spread is hardly big enough to be the difference between the presumed worker’s paradise of the early '90s and the dystopian nightmare of 2025.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Thing is, you don’t even have to be in a union to get the benefit of other industries having them. They raise the bar for everyone.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 18 hours ago
npr.org/…/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-…
It doesn’t change overnight. Union membership was the plug holding all the money in the barrel, holding back the pressure of the bosses just taking whatever they could squeeze, gradually in a coordinated bloc, but not enough that people would jump ship from their specific operation and go to another place, but enough that every year there would be less and less, until now a majority of Americans can’t pay their expenses.
Maybe it wasn’t unions. You might be right. There are all these graphs pointing to something specific that happened in the 1970s that suddenly divorced productivity gains from wage gains, so maybe whatever it was that caused that finally began to have its real awful influence in the mid-1990s and finally really bear fruit in the late 2000s. Kevin’s dad didn’t buy that house in 1991. You get what I’m saying. There’s a delay. But, like I say, I have no real idea. I’m just guessing and throwing out random possibilities. Something fucked everything up. Probably a combination of things. Not having unions definitely couldn’t have helped.
merc@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
If you were white, and it was immediately after WWII when every other major country in the world had been pulverized in WWII while the US was essentially untouched.
Even if it were possible to bring back the strong unions from the end of the great depression, and to bring back the laws from the New Deal which were in force at the end of WWII. And even if you did those things while simultaneously taking away the rights from black people so that they had the pre-civil-rights lifestyle. Even then, you couldn’t get to this level of wealth for a truck driver without also having a world war that smashed every other country and left the US whole.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, affording a house isn’t the same as having a mansion and taking everyone you know on a vacation.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 day ago
You gotta read past the first sentence my man lol
atlien51@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Well let’s change that!