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Mike the Durable- the Rasputin of the BronxMichael Malloy age 30 (Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill)Michael Malloy was a homeless Irish man who lived in New York in the 1920s and 1930s. A former firefighter, he is famously remembered in history as “Mike the Durable” and “Iron Mike”[1], who survived numerous murder attempts by five of his acquaintances who would have gained $3,500 through an insurance fraud if the ploy had succeeded.New York City, like the rest of the country, was devastated and demoralized by the Great Depression in the early 1930s. The carefree America of the Jazz Age had vanished like smoke. In its place, a somber populace waited in blocks-long breadlines for food. Unemployment was skyrocketing to near 30%.[2] Banks were closing at a rapid rate. Once wealthy Wall Street bankers now sat in gutters begging for change. Prohibition was still the law of the land, though it had no real teeth. The increasingly large block of poor and homeless transients that roamed the city often scrounged whatever free food and drink they could at their neighborhood speakeasy.Anthony Marino managed to weather hard times by the skin of his teeth. A grungy man who suffered from perpetual financial troubles and an advancing case of syphilis, Marino ran a small, bare-bones speakeasy in back of an abandoned storefront at 3775 Third Avenue in the Bronx.[3] It wasn’t much; a sofa, four tables, a twelve-foot long plywood bar along the back wall, and a modest supply of bootleg liquor (the saloon was so bland and nondescript that it didn’t even have a name.)[4]It was a miserable way to make a living. Sometimes Marino’s customers paid him, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they’d empty out whatever coins they had in their pockets and put the rest of their bill on a tab.[5] Sometimes they paid the tab, sometimes they didn’t. Some nights it seemed to Tony Marino as if he was pouring his meager profits down the collective gullet of his lowly clientele.Marino’s bartender was twenty-eight year old Joseph “Red” Murphy, an alcoholic simpleton and one-time chemist who had been a vagrant for most of his life. While Tony sporadically paid Red a dollar-a-day wage, it was unspoken yet understood that Murphy’s real payment was free run of his boss’s stock of booze behind the bar. The homeless Murphy usually crashed on the bar’s couch after he closed, curling up under a single blanket to stay warm. By his own later admission, he "had nowhere else to go."[6]The plot was conceived over a round of drinks. One afternoon in July 1932, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, Daniel Kriesberg, Joseph “Red” Murphy, and Tony Marino sat in Marino’s eponymous speakeasy on 3804 Third Avenue[7] and raised their glasses, sealing their complicity, figuring the job was already half-finished. They even had included a corrupt insurance agent in the plan.The “Murder Trust,” as the press would call them, now included a few of Marino’s regulars, including petty criminals John McNally and Edward “Tin Ear” Smith (so-called even though his artificial ear was made of wax), “Tough Tony” Bastone and his slavish sidekick, Joseph Maglione.[8]How difficult could it be to push Michael Malloy to drink himself to death?The Murder Trust (clockwise from top left): Daniel Kreisberg, Joseph Murphy, Frank Pasqua, and Tony Marino (The Man Who Wouldn’t Die)Every morning the old man showed up at Marino’s place in the Bronx and requested “Another mornin’s morning, if ya don’t mind” in his muddled brogue[9]; hours later he would pass out on the floor. For a while, Marino had let Malloy drink on credit, but he no longer paid his tabs. “Business,” the saloonkeeper confided to Pasqua and Kriesberg, “is bad.”[10]No one knew much about Michael Malloy—not even, it seemed, Malloy himself—other than that he had come from Ireland. He had no friends or family, no definitive date of birth (most guessed him to be about 60), no apparent trade or vocation beyond the occasional odd job cleaning coffins, sweeping alleys or collecting garbage, happy to be paid in alcohol instead of money.[11] He had been a gainfully employed stationary engineer – working on industrial machines in New York.[12] But this was the height of the Great Depression, and jobs were basically non existent.Like so many men of that era who once worked in America’s heavy industry, and so many Irish men who travelled to big cities across the United States, he hit the bottle hard, and became a slave to it. A “speakeasy derelict.”[13] He was, wrote the Daily Mirror, just part of the “flotsam and jetsam in the swift current of underworld speakeasy life, those no-longer-responsible derelicts who stumble through the last days of their lives in a continual haze of ‘Bowery Smoke.’ ”[14]Frank Pasqua (The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”)Pasqua, 24, an undertaker by trade, ran a funeral home on E. 116th Street in East Harlem. A clever, cold-blooded type, Pasqua was one of the only people around who knew what Tony Marino had done to Betty Carlson.[15] Pasqua eyed Malloy’s sloping figure, the glass of whiskey hoisted to his slack mouth. “Why don’t you take out insurance on Malloy?” Pasqua asked Marino that day, according to another contemporary newspaper report. “I can take care of the rest.”[16]Marino paused. Pasqua knew he’d pulled off such a scheme once before. The prior year, Marino, 27, had befriended a homeless woman named Mabelle Carson and convinced her to take out a $2,000 life insurance policy, naming him as the beneficiary. One frigid night he force-fed her alcohol, stripped off her clothing, doused the sheets and mattress with ice water, and pushed the bed beneath an open window. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as bronchial pneumonia, and Marino collected the money without incident.[17]Pasqua offered to do the legwork. The men convinced Mike Malloy that he needed some insurance on himself. Malloy, who had spent untold years in an alcohol-induced haze, didn't seem to think anything was amiss and allowed Frank Pasqua to steer him towards the insurance office.[18] Malloy was instructed to identify himself as Nicholas Mellory and claim to be a florist, a detail that one of Pasqua’s funeral business colleagues would verify.[19] However, no amount of pomade and bay rum could clean up the pestiferous Malloy. The policy application came back stamped REJECTED.[20] As did a half-dozen others. It occurred to the boys that if Malloy was going to be insured by some gullible company, he could not show his face.It took Pasqua five months (and a connection with an unscrupulous agent) to secure three policies—all offering double indemnity—on Nicholas Mellory’s life: two with Prudential Life Insurance Company and one with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.[21] Pasqua recruited Joseph Murphy, a bartender at Marino’s, to identify the deceased as Michael Malloy and claim to be his next of kin and beneficiary.[22] If all went as planned, Pasqua and his cohorts would split $3,576 (about $54,000 in today’s dollars) after Michael Malloy died as uneventfully and anonymously as he had lived.[23]While death by automobile qualified for double indemnity, death by liquid poisoning, hypothermia, tainted seafood, and carpet tack sandwich did not.[24] The Murder Trust had been unknowingly undermining themselves since Day One.Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to killThe policy of “double indemnity” was at the heart of an infamous New York murder just five years earlier. In 1927, a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder, and her lover, murdered her husband Albert and passed it off as a burglary gone awry. She had persuaded Albert to take out a life insurance policy, with an extra payout in the event of a violent death. The two were easily caught, convicted, and both electrocuted after a high-profile trial that inspired the novel Double Indemnity, and the classic noir thriller movie of the same name.[25]Malloy was an alcoholic and Marino, as owner of the speakeasy, thought that if he gave him unlimited credit, he would drink himself to death. Marino thought it a brilliant plan, declaring he would “give all of the drink he wants…and let him drink himself to death.”[26] But though Michael did abuse the credit and drank most of the time, he kept appearing in the bar for free liquor.To Malloy’s undisguised delight, Tony Marino granted him an open-ended tab, saying competition from other saloons had forced him to ease the rules.[27] No sooner did Malloy down a shot than Marino refilled his glass. “Malloy had been a hard drinker all his life,” one witness said, “and he drank on and on.”[28] He drank until Marino’s arm tired from holding the bottle. Remarkably, his breathing remained steady; his skin retained its normally ruddy tinge. Finally, he dragged a grungy sleeve across his mouth, thanked his host for the hospitality, and said he’d be back soon.[29] Within 24 hours, he was.Malloy, accustomed to getting the bum's rush because of his lack of funds, was so thrilled that he eagerly signed a petition that would help elect Marino for local office. What he actually signed was an insurance policy from Metropolitan Life for $800, and two from Prudential for $495 each. The gang even provided Malloy with a crash pad in the back of the bar to sleep off his hangovers.[30](The legend of Iron Mike Malloy and the Murder Trust)Malloy followed this pattern for three days, pausing only long enough to eat a complimentary sardine sandwich.[31] Marino and his accomplices were at a loss. Maybe, they hoped, Malloy would choke on his own vomit or fall and slam his head. But on the fourth day Malloy stumbled into the bar. “Boy!” he exclaimed, nodding at Marino. “Ain’t I got a thirst?”[32]Tough Tony grew impatient, suggesting someone simply shoot Malloy in the head.[33] As a bartender and chemist, Murphy was intimately familiar with all the lethal poisons floating around the country’s speakeasies.[34] The main ingredient of wood alcohol is methanol, a highly toxic chemical substance often found in such industrial compounds as paint thinner and automobile antifreeze.[35] Murphy recommended a more subtle solution: exchanging Malloy’s whiskey and gin with shots of wood alcohol. Drinks containing just four percent wood alcohol could cause blindness, and by 1929 more than 50,000 people nationwide had died from the effects of impure alcohol.[36] They would serve Malloy not shots tainted with wood alcohol, but wood alcohol straight up.Kriesberg allowed a rare display of enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he added, “feed ’im wood alcohol cocktails and see what happens.”[37] Murphy bought a few ten-cent cans of wood alcohol at a nearby paint shop and carried them back in a brown paper bag. He served Malloy shots of cheap whiskey to get him “feeling good,” and then made the switch.[38]The gang watched, rapt, as Malloy downed several shots and kept asking for more, displaying no physical symptoms other than those typical of inebriation.[39] “He didn’t know that what he was drinking was wood alcohol,” reported the New York Evening Post, “and what he didn’t know apparently didn’t hurt him. He drank all the wood alcohol he was given and came back for more.”[40]Tony Matiano Speakseasy (The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”)Night after night, Malloy drank shots of wood alcohol as fast as Murphy poured them, until the night he crumpled without warning to the floor.[41] The gang fell silent, staring at the jumbled heap by their feet. Pasqua knelt by Malloy’s body, feeling the neck for a pulse, lowering his ear to the mouth. The man’s breath was slow and labored. They decided to wait, watching the sluggish rise and fall of his chest. Any minute now. Finally, there was a long, jagged breath—the death rattle?—but then Malloy began to snore. He awakened some hours later, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Gimme some of th’ old regular, me lad!”[42]Over the next few days the gang spiked Malloy's drinks with stronger doses of antifreeze, then turpentine and, finally, horse liniment with rat poison[43]The plot to kill Michael Malloy was becoming cost-prohibitive; the open bar tab, the cans of wood alcohol and the monthly insurance premiums all added up. Marino fretted that his speakeasy would go bankrupt. Tough Tony once again advocated brute force, but Pasqua had another idea. Malloy had a well-known taste for seafood.[44] Why not drop some oysters in denatured alcohol, let them soak for a few days, and serve them while Malloy imbibed?[45] “Alcohol taken during a meal of oysters,” Pasqua was quoted as saying, “will almost invariably cause acute indigestion, for the oysters tend to remain preserved.”[46]As planned, Malloy ate them one by one, savoring each bite, and washed them down with wood alcohol. Marino, Pasqua and the rest played pinochle and waited, but Malloy merely licked his fingers and belched.[47]At this point killing Michael Malloy was just as much about pride as about a payoff—a payoff, they all griped, that would be split among too many conspirators.[48] Murphy tried next. He let a tin of sardines rot for several days, mixed in some shrapnel, slathered the concoction between pieces of bread and served Malloy the sandwich. [49] Any minute, they thought, the metal would start slashing through his organs. Instead, Malloy finished his tin sandwich and asked for another.With the understanding that nothing ingestible would kill Michael, the Murder Trust saught alternative ways to kill him. The gang called an emergency conference. They didn’t know what to make of this Rasputin of the Bronx. Marino recalled his success with Mabelle Carlson and suggested that they ice Malloy down and leave him outside overnight.[50] That evening, with recorded temperatures of -14°F, Marino and Pasqua tossed Malloy into the back seat of Pasqua’s roadster, drove in silence to Crotona Park and lugged the unconscious man through heaps of snow.[51] After depositing him on a park bench, they stripped off his shirt and dumped 5 gallons of water on his chest and head. Malloy never stirred. When Marino arrived at his speakeasy the following day, he found Malloy’s half-frozen form in the basement.[52] Somehow Malloy had trekked the half-mile back and persuaded Murphy to let him in. When he came to, he complained of a “wee chill.”[53]File photo of an American cab driver (Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill)Ironically, Malloy took a week-long break from his booze consumption during this period to seek treatment for a festering sore on his leg at Fordham Hospital.[54] It showed the Murder Trust that despite everything, Mike Malloy was indeed physically fallible.February neared. Another insurance payment was due. One of the gang, John McNally, wanted to run Malloy over with a car. The gang had offered John McNally and James Salone $200 and then $400 to run him over, but both men refused.[55] Tin Ear Smith was skeptical, but Marino, Pasqua, Murphy and Kriesberg were intrigued. John Maglione offered the services of a cabdriver friend named Harry Green, whose cut from the insurance money would total $150.[56] Green, a 23-year-old son of Russian Jewish immigrants, ran a taxi company in the Bronx, and was asked to arrange an “accidental” collision with Mike Malloy.[57]They all piled into Green’s cab, a drunken Malloy strewn across their feet. Green drove a few blocks and stopped. Bastone and Murphy dragged Malloy down the road, holding him up, crucifixion-style, by his outstretched arms. Green gunned the engine. Everyone braced. From the corner of his eye, Maglione saw a quick flash of light.“Stop!” he yelled.[58]The cab lurched to a halt. Green determined it had just been a woman turning on the light in her room, and he prepared for another go.[59] Malloy managed to leap out of the way—not once, but twice. On the third attempt Green raced toward Malloy at 50 miles per hour. Two thuds, one loud and one soft, the body against the hood and then dropping to the ground. For good measure, Green backed up over him.[60] The gang was confident Malloy was dead, but a passing car scared them from the scene before they could confirm.On February 7, a man carrying Nicholas Mellory’s ID card was found battered and bloodied at Austin Place, in the South Bronx. He was revealed to be Joseph Patrick Murray, a 31-year-old immigrant from Calteraun, Co Sligo. In 1934, his permanent address was listed as 1786 Vyse Avenue, right on the other side of Crotona Park from Tony Marino’s speakeasy.[61]Iron Mike Malloy: The Rasputin of the Bronx - Celtic AttitudesAn out of work plasterer who had fallen on hard times, Murray was later found in a “rickety shack in a Depression colony” next to the Hudson Parkway.[62] Murray later recounted getting drunk at a speakeasy in Harlem on the night of 7 February, before being offered a free lift and free booze by a taxi driver. [63] There were two men in the back seat, and driving the cab was a face familiar to Murray – Harry Green. The New York Times reports that a “negro” saw Murray being knocked down by the car at Austin Place, and quickly wrote down the taxi license number – it was Green’s.[64]On the ID for Nicholas Mellory, found stuffed into Murray’s coat pocket after the accident, was his next of kin – Frank Pasqua, the undertaker.[65]It fell to Joseph Murphy, who had been cast as Nicholas Mellory’s brother, to call morgues and hospitals in an attempt to locate his missing “sibling.”[66] No one had any information, nor were there any reports of a fatal accident in the newspapers. Five days later, as Pasqua plotted to kill another anonymous drunk—any anonymous drunk—and pass him off as Nicholas Mellory[67] , the door to Marino’s speakeasy swung open and in limped a battered, bandaged Michael Malloy, looking only slightly worse than usual.His greeting: “I sure am dying for a drink!”[68]Malloy could only remember fragments of the previous night- the taste of whiskey, the cold slap of night air, the glare of rushing lights. Then, blackness. Next thing he knew he woke up in a warm bed at Fordham Hospital and wanted only to get back to the bar.[69]Image credits: NYC Municipal Archives via thejournalTired and running out of ideas, the Murder Trust gang took one final shot. It has been estimated that by this stage of the game, the Murder Trust had spent about $1800 trying to murder a man who was worth, at best, $1788.[70]Two of the men rented a room in an old boarding housenear 168th St. (less than a mile from Marino’s speakeasy) with gas lighting. On February 21, 1933 after he had passed out, they hauled him there, connected a hose to the gas valve, ran it into the old man's mouth, securing the hose with a towel wrapped around his head. The illuminating gas was dense with that lethal poison, carbon monoxide.[71]The conspirators didn't know, of course, that carbon monoxide is so efficient because it muscles oxygen out of the blood stream. They didn't know that carbon monoxide forms a bond with proteins in the blood that is 200 times more powerful than that of oxygen.[72] That it induces a chemical suffocation.They didn't know that and they probably wouldn't have cared. They just knew that the steady hiss of illuminating gas did its job. Malloy barely lasted ten minutes. Dr. Frank Manzella, a friend of Pasqua’s, filed a phony death certificate citing lobar pneumonia as the cause for a payment of $100.[73] Red Murphy successfully passed himself off as the brother of “Nicholas Mellory” and collected $800 from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Murphy and Marino both spent their shares of this money on new suits.[74]A check for $800 from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the only money the Murder Trust collected (The Man Who Wouldn’t Die)Pasqua arrived at the Prudential office confident he would collect the money from the other two policies, but the agent surprised him with a question: “When can I see the body?”[75] Pasqua replied that he was already buried. In fact, Malloy's friends gave him an elaborate burial in the Potter's Field at Ferncliff Cemetery for $12.[76]Pasqua billed his insurance company for an expensive coffin and non-existent floral arrangements.[77]In May 1933, gravediggers exhumed Mike Malloy's body from a 12-foot-deep pauper's plot in the charity section of Westchester County's Ferncliffe Cemetery.[78] And even though this was several months after the death, by that time researchers knew that carbon monoxide was not only efficient but durable, tainting a body for weeks after death.[79] Laboratory analysis easily found lethal levels of carbon monoxide in the remains of Malloy.Michael Malloy after exhaumation (Malloy the Invincible)An investigation ensued; everyone began talking, and everyone eventually faced charges. Green hadn't been paid his full share and started talking, while a professional hit man told friends that an insurance ring had been set to hire him, but his fee was too high.[80] Joseph Maglione, Edward “Tin Ear” Smith, John McNally, and Dr. Manzella all turned state’s evidence, and in exchange for reduced prison sentences, agreed to testify against the Murder Trust.[81] The now-recovered Joseph Murray told of his run-in with the Keystone Killers from the Bronx.[82] In their trial that autumn, the boys tried to pin the whole scheme on the deceased Tough Tony Bastone.Frank Pasqua, Tony Marino, Daniel Kriesberg and Joseph Murphy were tried and convicted of first-degree murder. At trial at the Bronx County Court House, the four murderers either claimed insanity or shifted the blame to each other, and then finally accused "Tough" Tony Bastone, a gangster who they said forced them to kill Malloy.[83] Bastone couldn't testify, having been killed a month after Malloy's death. “Perhaps,” one reporter mused, “the grinning ghost of Mike Malloy was present in the Bronx County Courthouse.”[84] Daniel Kriesberg, the 29-year-old grocer and father of three, stated he participated for the sake of his family.[85]In June and July 1934, Marino, Pasqua, Kreisberg and Murphy died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison, which killed them on the very first flip of the switch. Harry Green, the taxi driver, went to jail. Dr. Frank Manzella served prison time for being an accessory after the fact.[86]In the end, with the exception of Malloy, no one profited from the scam. In his last months, Malloy had food, shelter, a never-ending supply of alcohol and what he thought were friends. His alcohol consumption alone exceeded the value of the insurance policies. As the number of co-conspiritors grew, shares grew smaller and smaller. Eventually, the Murder Trust turned on itself leading to the inprisonment of all and eventually execution for core members..Footnotes[1] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[2] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html&ved=2ahUKEwjZn6mFx_PhAhVGM6wKHR4ZD_YQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3c7Jm768EWR9kqzJczKISK[3] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/deadly-policy-insurance-scam-goons-pay-hefty-price-murder-article-1.1278023%3FoutputType%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwiKlqilx_PhAhVJJKwKHQu9CzoQFjAFegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2w6EAoDBgMKiyQGL59lLz_&ampcf=1&cshid=1556480948837[4] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[5] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [6] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[7] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[8] New York Gangs Murder Trust and Michael Malloy Part 1[9] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[10] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[11] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[12] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[13] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[14] A Toast to Mike the Durable[15] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[16] The Curious Case Of Michael Malloy – “Rasputin Of The Bronx”[17] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[18] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[19] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[20] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[21] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[22] MOLLOY THE MIGHTY.[23] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[24] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010.[25] The Shocking Story Behind The First Photo Of Death By Electric Chair[26] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[27] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[28] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[29] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[30] The durable Mike Malloy[31] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[32] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[33] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[34] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[35] http://O'Connor, Michael (2007-10-07). "The Durable Mike Malloy". New York Daily News[36] Wood Alcohol[37] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[38] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[39] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[40] The durable Mike Malloy[41] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[42] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[43] The durable Mike Malloy[44] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[45] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[46] Landmarks in Medicine[47] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[48] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[49] The Science Behind Seven Of The World's Most Horrifically Gruesome Deaths[50] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page[51] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[52] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[53] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[54] http://The Strange Death of Mike the Durable" in Women in Crime Inc, March 23, 2010. [55] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[56] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[57] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[58] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[59] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[60] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[61] Image on thejournal.ie[62] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[63] http://Deborah Blum. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin Press, Feb 18, 2010.[64] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/House-Bizare-Killing-Michael-Berkley/dp/0425206785&ved=2ahUKEwj65bLF5PHhAhVOHqwKHajTAUM4ChAWMAJ6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw0COWWTD2Hp4fBZqTJ3wVf8[65] Image on thejournal.ie[66] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[67] Image on thejournal.ie[68] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[69] Rasputin of the Bronx – The Irishman they couldn’t kill[70] Malloy the Invincible[71] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[72] Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[73] PHYSICIAN IS GUILTY IN MALLOY SLAYING; Bronx Jury Finds That Dr. Manzella Gave a False Certificate of Death.[74] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[75] The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[76] Malloy the Invincible[77] Meet Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die[78] The durable Mike Malloy[79] The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim[80] The durable Mike Malloy[81] http://Simon Read. On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Molloy, Berkley Books, 2005[82] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/06/20/keystone-killers/&ved=2ahUKEwjNwePzyfPhAhUFLKwKHfRjC8YQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2szu38HM-gRLJPAYOxEN4M[83] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[84] Iron Mike Malloy: The Donegal man they tried nine times to kill[85] ExecutedToday.com " daniel kriesberg[86] Michael Malloy from the Useless Information Home Page

Yes, there are plenty, though they are not often talked about, or often portrayed as not being a result of capitalism and market economies.In Rome 2000 years ago, Marcus Licinius Crassus had his private firefighters. When there was a fire, the fire fighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they would simply let it burn.There was mercantilism, the idea that nations compete against each other and should be ran for profits. This fueled wars, imperialism and colonialism, as nations tried to conquer new colonies as sources of gold and spices.Colonialism lasted from 1519 to around the 1950, with the exact dates varying, and many regions still struggling for independence.You have events like the great potato famine in 1845, where over a million Irish died, and another million were forced to emigrate, causing the population to drop by 25% or more in a couple of years. While the farmers were starving, the landholders were exporting the food for profits, and government refused to implement tariffs or bans on exports, in the name of free trade, and laissez-faire capitalism.There was the slave trade, and the plantation economy, when people believed that humans were a form of private property, to be owned, bought, sold or traded for profit, a form of investment, a business opportunity for the property owners to enrich themselves.1500 to 1865, civil rights only gained in 1964.There was the gilded age in end of the 19th century, with its sweatshops, rampant child labor, swill milk, etc.There was the great depression (1929 to 1939), the economic effects of which helped propel Hitler to power, leading to world war 2.The GM recall scandal of 2014, where faulty ignition switches that have been linked to at least 97 deaths. GM's managers knew about it, and estimated that replacing the key ignition-switch component would cost 90 cents per car but only save 10 to 15 cents on warranty costs. Thus they decided to let people die, as it would be more profitable.The subprime lending crisis in 2007 to 2010, (“subprime” being a fancy name for “shit”) where the idea was that as long as it is to buy a house, you can lend money to people at high interest even when you know they wont be able to pay and will have to default, since then you can just take the house, and keep what the person already paid. This caused a bubble in the housing market, 10 million Americans lost their savings and homes and a depression ensued.Then there is also the fact that corrupt political systems exist all over the world, and letting those who can afford to pay make the decisions is clearly not working out in everyone’s favor.Usually, people will argue that if a government existed at the time something bad happened, that system wasn’t really capitalism at all.And then they will turn around and claim that any good thing that happened in the world is due to capitalism, proof of how well the system works.Venezuela’s market system isnt working well? They have a government, government is to blame, they are communists.Europe and and China are doing well? Must be because of their lack of regulations, and capitalism. They disagree? So what? Our press knows their systems better than the people who live there.No government at all, and people killing each other? Not capitalism.A government, that is corrupt, and responds to the highest bidder, where people only get things by paying? Also not capitalism.Actual capitalist governments? Also not really capitalism.Except when it comes to claiming that capitalism is good. In that case, technology, any form of trade, any market, any rich person, anything that exists and is nice is claimed to be the result of capitalism.Also, this answer would not be complete without mentioning the so called tragic failures of communism itself.Hitler killed 10 million people while privatizing the German economy, and breaking up unions. But he was a bad guy so he doesn’t count.Stalin killed less than 5 million people out of a population of 200 million. So around 2% of the population. (3% of the adult US population is under correctional supervision). He is what happens every time, and it can’t be avoided.Wait that’s not right!I bet you heard numbers much higher than that? Tens or hundreds of millions of people dying in communist regimes?Well actually, it is true. There were a lot more people that died, there were not just intentional killings, but also famines and such events.And here there is a really cool little accounting trick you can do.Socialist states are supposed to provide food for their people, right? So if they ever fail to do that, and people die, we can say that socialism killed those people.Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn’t kill anyone.If someone dies of hunger in a market economy, it is their own fault for dying, because they were the ones supposed to provide for themselves. All the people who died in market economies over the years, none of them count at all.And of course, if it just so happens that the socialist country is under siege, under a complete trade embargo enforced by military means while the famines happen? That does not count as causing a famine.And capitalism has one giant advantage. Advertising!If a socialist state were to publish happy images, it is propaganda!Propaganda is totally not good. We dont want that.But advertising? That is like a right to mass production of free speech in a way.People should have a right to propagate whatever images they want, and shove them down everyone’s throats as much as possible. And huge amounts of money can be spent on making everything look good. Products dont need to last or be useful if they sell.After World War 2, there was the cold war, where the efficient welfare states were locked in a race against the inefficient socialist states for 50 years. The socialists managed to put the first man in space, and the US government managed to land on the moon.With advertising, and television though, huge budgets could be spent on displaying capitalism in a positive light.Nobody ever loses their job, and ends up homeless. That would just be the sad reality, people dont want that. Instead, the entertainment industry can keep cranking out stories and idealized, convenient versions of happy societies. If they do lose their jobs, they can become a drug dealer and still get rich from the market.The capitalist propaganda machine won the cold war. Combining something entertaining, that helps people escape their grim reality, with advertising mixed in is genius. It blurrs the lines quite a bit, and conditions people to watch a lot more advertising than they otherwise would.Mixing a heavy amount of propaganda in every single media, in newspapers, in radio or TV shows, on the internet, on the walls, on the busses, in the trains or the metro, next to streets or highways, etc, this was just too much, no socialist state was willing to go that far.China initially cut its people off the rest of the internet to avoid them being flooded with this kind of constant misinformation and propaganda named advertising and branding.When people watch a lot of TV, or spend their time on the internet, and avoid looking at the homeless, avoid going into poor areas, etc, avoid actually looking around in the real world around them, well then everything appears to be going quite well.The homeless person isn’t quite invisible, but the fact that people would rather not look, coupled with the catchy and colorful design means that glancing at such situations leaves the impression in your mind that everything is going pretty well overall. Probably that old lady is there to help the homeless person already.Since people being poor is nobody’s fault but their own, completely unrelated to markets, and everything can be made to look like it is going quite well, there are now a lot of people arguing we should switch back to the end of the 19th century sweatshop conditions, disassemble the welfare state, remove minimum wages and all regulations, and never tax anyone, especially not rich people or businesses.To finish, let me read some quotes from the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations:A hundred years before Marx, he was analyzing society, and markets, and capital, and how it all works.His views kind of have to be put into the context of his timeWhere the government was a king, the first parliament had just been established, people had access to common land (the commons) that had yet to be privatized during the inclosure acts, an aristocratic nobility having the right to charge rent was seen as inevitable, etc.The ideas of democracy were slowly emerging, but voting rights were mostly a thing for white men, or landowners. He is worth reading if you want to know more about capitalism, he is someone capitalists often like to cite in support of their arguments, in a way he is to capitalism as Marx is to Marxism, someone who managed to articulate the theory and put it in a book. Often though people make him say things it seems he never did. Ask for a quote next time someone speaks about Adam Smith, they probably never actually read him :)Edit: I also decided to include this graph, because supply and demand curves are one of the first things that are taught in economy classes, one of the supporting pillars of market theory, describing how markets work. Prices being set through supply and demand, etc.But it seems that people are not actually taught to think about what this really means, in reality, in practice. It just stays as abstract concepts. But it’s important to look at the whole picture. The part in grey is everyone that is left without access to a certain good.In every housing market, there will be homeless, in every food market, hunger, in every education market, people who cant afford education, etc.Makeshift solutions like providing people with the option to get into debt to buy houses or education just means the market price never stops going up, forcing people to take on bigger and bigger loans, and causing housing bubbles, bankruptcies, potential bank runs, needs for bailouts, etc.But as we know, this causes the price of housing and education to get completely out of hand.Financed by ever increasing debt.A system that causes housing bubbles, and where government bailouts are needed to prevent bank runs.And where homelessness STILL exists. Yay for housing markets.

Yes, China’s high speed rail is profitable and there aren’t many Chinese who haven’t personally profited from it, either. It’s an excellent, highly visible example of how China designs its programs holistically– whether they’re for infrastructure, social security or defense–and eliminates what Western economists call ‘externalities’ (things, like pollution, that someone else must pay for. There is no ‘someone else’ in China; there’s only ‘us’).To be fully inclusive, I’m going to borrow the best points from the best answers by Walter, ZhenXiang Shi, Yu Cheng, Z. Shen, Wen Ling, Haiyan Chen and Prasanna Bhalerao and add a dimension that foreign critics of China often miss. But first, let’s review some infrastructure history to help us understand why critics have long predicted problems for China.One of the most famous, most popular high speed rail lines on earth is the 400 km London-Paris Eurostar: “The company awarded a contract for the construction of the tunnel to TransManche Link (TML). The tunnel cost around £9.5bn to build, about double TML's original estimate of £4.7bn. The tunnel was financed partly from investment by shareholders and partly from £8bn of debt, and was officially opened on 6 May 1994 by HM Queen Elizabeth II, and President François Mitterrand. In its first year of operation the company lost £925m because of disappointing revenue from passengers and freight, together with heavy interest charges on its £8bn of debt. In April 2004, a dissident shareholder group led by Nicolas Miguet succeeded in taking control of the board. However, in February 2005, Jean-Louis Raymond, the Chief Executive appointed after the boardroom coup, resigned and Jacques Gounon took complete control becoming Chairman and Chief Executive. In July 2006, shareholders voted on a deal which would have seen half the debt, by then reduced to £6.2bn, exchanged for 87% of the equity. However this plan failed, and on 2 August 2006, the company was placed into bankruptcy protection by a French court for six months”.Eurostar’s experience confirmed what neoliberal critics had long claimed: infrastructure is unprofitable even if it benefits millions of people. So it’s natural that, when the Chinese government built 20,000 km of even higher-speed rail, skeptics predicted bankruptcy. High-speed rail service in China was introduced on April 18, 2007 and traffic has grown 30% per annum ever since, reaching 1.44 billion in 2016: four times of the HSR volume in Japan, nine times France’s, and greater than north America’s total air traffic.Despite these impressive figures, every completed line incurs losses in its first years of operation. The Beijing–Tianjin HSR cost ¥20.42 billion to build and ¥1.8 billion annually to operate, (including ¥0.6 billion in interest payments) and needed to provide 40 million rides a year to reach profitabilty. In its first year, 2008–2009, it carried 18.7 million riders and generated ¥1.1 billion in revenues for a loss of ¥0.7 billion. The next year, ridership rose to 22.3 million and revenues improved to ¥1.4 billion, for a ¥0.5 billion loss. By 2016 it was maxed out, providing 100 million rides–100% capacity–and highly profitable. Construction of a second line has commenced. (WikiVisually).China’s HSR network has exceeded its predictions–both technically and financially–and is solidly profitable today.Where do the profits come from and how are profits diverted to pay off construction loans? The answers are: they come from almost everywhere and, since every aspect of the network is cooperatively owned, it’s easy to skim off enough pay the interest and retire the bonds when they fall due. ‘Everywhere’ is a little vague, so here’s a list of the cost savings and some revenue streams:Increased forecasting accuracy. The more they have built, the more accurate their predictions have become. Accurate predictions lead to accurate financial models which lead to accurate bond pricing.Low construction cost. The program benefits from scale. From mass-produced, unballasted rail sections to bridges (ordered by the meter) to engines and carriages. Production and demand are tightly integrated, eliminating stop-and-go and costly downtime. Current construction and manufacturing costs are now 30%-40% cheaper than anywhere on earth. Here’s an example of how automated the process is: the SLJ900/32 Bridge Girder Erector Machine lays a pre-fabbed tranche of track in 50 minutes, much faster than if done by 20 workers. High-Speed Railways in China: A Look at Construction CostsEconomic stimulus from the initial investment. A surprising percentage of the $650 billion invested (so far) came back within twelve months in the form of income and sales taxes that ripple out in all directions from the factories and construction sites. HSR construction creates jobs and lifts demand for construction, steel and cement industries during the economic downturn. Work on the Beijing–Shanghai HSR mobilized 110,000 workers.Land development. This is the system’s ace card: Those shopping complexes at the stations? A share of the rents goes to pay off the bonds. Land sales around the stations? A share of the sales price goes to pay off the bonds. The increased commercial activity around stations? A share of the increased taxes help pay off the bonds. Those ‘stations in the middle of nowhere’? When new towns are built around them, land sales and development and the increased tax base will help pay off the bonds.Increased productivity from passenger time savings. Improves economic productivity and competitiveness over the long term by increasing the transport capacity of railways and linking labor markets. The World Bank’s survey found that high-speed passengers' average income is 35-50% higher than that of passengers on conventional trains. This year (2017), if 1.8 billion riders each saves an average of four hours compared to automobile, plane or regular train and the average urban wage in 2017 is US $1,000/mo, then HSR will save the average rider $24 of productive time, for a total of $43 billion. that will, eventually, boost economic activity and, of course, tax revenues.Ticket revenues. Since the first line opened, ticket prices have stayed almost flat while the average wage has doubled. Today, twice as many people can afford HSR as could afford it in 2007.Enhanced freight revenues. Intercity high speed package delivery is a large and growing revenue source. Today someone who lives in Shanghai can order products from Alibaba in the morning and get them in the evening thanks to the HSR network, another reason why China's e-commerce is flourishing. Improved productivity and competitiveness generate increased taxes. Moving passengers to high-speed lines frees up older railways to carry more freight, which is more profitable for railways than passengers.Advertising revenues. Billions of ‘impressions’ to passengers whose average income is 30–50% higher than the national average.Concession revenues (food and drink). Those snack carts, station concessions, drink dispensers? They’re paying off the bonds, too.Environmental benefits. HSR reduces noise, high-atmosphere pollution and CO2 dramatically. These are direct contributions to quality of life and indirect contributions to reducing atmospheric pollution, thus raising the value of surrounding land.Tourism revenues. ‘The results indicate that at the national level, a trend of convergence emerges during the three-year period of analysis in both China and Korea. At the HSR passing area level, HSR contributes to accelerate regional economic convergence and reduce the regional income disparities in China’. HSR is responsible for 59% of the increase in market potential for the secondary cities connected by bullet trains. (Economic geographers call market potential "a geographic area's access to markets for inputs and outputs"). A 10% increase in a secondary city's market potential is expected to be associated with a 4.5% increase in its average real estate price. HSR promotes the growth of second-tier cities by making them more livable/desirable–and, of course, collects taxes on the increased revenues that go to pay….you know the rest.National cohesion and a national market. People, products and services move quickly, allowing people to live in one place and work in another. HSR helps rural areas profit from their natural resources by bringing business opportunities and tourists–while reducing rural people’s isolation (think Tibet!).Intellectual property exports. China is a leading source of high-speed rail technology. Chinese train-makers have absorbed imported technologies quickly, localized production processes and began competing in the export market. Six years after receiving Kawasaki's license to produce Shinkansen E2, CSC Sifang produced the CRH2A without Japanese input (Kawasaki ended cooperation with Sifang and has been sulking ever since).Energy savings. Electric trains use less energy to transport people and goods on a per unit basis and can draw power from more diverse sources of energy–including renewables–than automobile and aircraft, which are more reliant on imported petroleum. This cuts billions from China’s energy import bills.Scale savings: more profitable lines subsidize less profitable lines that serve thinly populated areas (think Tibet again).Because the government controls all these factors for the benefit of all the people, it can skim off enough from each to easily repay the bonds.And this is just one of hundreds of such projects underway whose planners approach them in the same holistic way.