This is a link to a gift article.
Several reporters at The New York Times worked together for months unraveling the secrets of Jeffrey Epstein’s financial success. How did he go from being a high school math teacher to a multimillionaire? His greatest trick, it appears, was cultivating and leveraging friendships among people who were wealthy and powerful. Name-dropping was a tactic. So were lying and boasting, as he rose in elite circles, cultivating contacts, references, women, and friends.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
According to Wikipedia, “Jeffrey Edward Epstein was born on January 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City. His parents, Pauline “Paula” Stolofsky (1918–2004) and Seymour George Epstein (1916–1991), were Jewish and had married in 1952 shortly before his birth. Pauline worked as a school aide and was a homemaker. Seymour worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as a groundskeeper and gardener.” Epstein graduated from the NYC public schools and attended college, although he did not have a college degree. He was gifted in mathematics and played the piano. He must have been able to present himself as an acceptable member of elite society as he cultivated friendships among the rich and powerful. Epstein’s life would be an interesting Horatio Alger tale, except for all the perversion and sexual exploitation.
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Horatio Alger highlighted “rags to riches” stories in our country, but I doubt Epstein would have been seen as a model for that, since his ability to “fall up” through lies and other deceptive practices were not exactly the hard work, ingenuity, persistence and connections that Alger saw as necessary and merit worthy for championing success.
As most people here know, due to state laws, college drop outs are not eligible to be teachers at public schools in this country. Typically, drop outs can only teach at private schools that are exempted (like religious schools). Teachers without college degrees are rather rare at private schools which serve the most wealthy families, so I wish they had provided details about how Epstein secured the job at Dalten, since that’s where he first met rich and influential people…
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Thanks for the gift article, Diane. When it comes to knowledge of Epstein and his world, I confess with chagrin to an embarrassment of riches acquired through various Netflix documentaries. But this area of Epstein’s ascent has always baffled me. Now I know.
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See, a high school teacher can rise to become a billionaire! But don’t do it his way!
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Hahahahaha! The problem is, I’m not sure I want to be a billionaire.
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I have assumed he was eventually able to leverage his way into Russian money by compromising political and industrial leaders.
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“Epstein continued his pattern of lying and cheating.”
No wonder Trump and Epstein were best friends for about 15 to 20 years.
cheaters — check
liars — check
rapists — check
frauds — check
The reason their friendship ended: “There is no honor among thieves.”
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There is something of Brecht’s ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ in this article. A small-time odious person becomes larger than expected by his patrons
The difference being: The subject matter of the play and its inspiration Hitler were warped fanatics with the gift of manipulating the willing.
Epstein was a scheming, carpet bagging, huckster. The side of The American Dream folk would rather not talk about until the magic word ‘Scandal’ arrives.
Roger
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