Young Moses disregarded finances and funded major work through his parents

Evidence

With his usual disregard for financial considerations, Moses had paid little attention to this state of affairs. If Gaus and Lambie were living off relatives, so was he—the major part of his income was still coming from his parents—but this didn’t seem to bother him, and as for the work of the commission, he vaguely assumed that with all those wealthy men interested in its success, whatever was needed would somehow be raised. They had so much money they’d never miss a little of it, he would say. … By Labor Day, the staff had been disbanded. Some sections of the report existed only in recommendation memos, others only in rough-draft form. Only a few sections were actually completed. Lugging the commission’s files to his already cramped apartment, Moses wrote the rest of the report alone. By October, it was finished. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 450

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the standing claim about Moses that the whole book develops - his privileged financial cushion lets him treat institutional money and fund-raising as beneath him. This pattern later reverses when unfunded park construction becomes his signature. — connects to: Young Moses discussed government obsessively but never money — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 331; Moses’ parents routinely paid off his debts — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 941; Moses’s early failure came from ignoring greed, self-interest, and the drive for power — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 376
• QUESTION: Worth noting that Moses’s disregard for money at this stage seeded a lifelong pattern where financial leverage was someone else’s concern - does Caro show this recurring in the parkway and bridge finances later?

Broader Connections

• Moses’ parents routinely paid off his debts #corroborates (0.95) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 941
• Moses’s early failure came from ignoring greed, self-interest, and the drive for power #expands (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 376