Stranger
You’re really funny. It’s funny, you know, that story, it’s funny, you’re funny guys.
Interestingly, the wives suddenly falling into money and showing it off like that comes back around after their big hit and the guys start buying expensive cars and fur coats.
If they were really NY area Italians they should have had plastic covers for the sofa and other furniture.
At the club I belonged to the yearly dues included $XXXXX fee which was deposited in an account to be used at various bars/dining rooms/pro shops throughout the year. You signed the tab with your member number and your account was debited.
Often the result was at the end of the year some members had a good bit left in their accounts and would throw pretty nice parties for other members and their guests - it was a Use it or Lose it situation.
What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?
in case anyone is wondering Karen and Henry were in Omaha, then Cincinnati and then Seattle in the witness protection program.
Paulie was rich, he just didn’t flaunt it. But he wasn’t the crew chief( Jimmy was that ), he was a caporegime. Everybody kicked up to him and he only kicked up one level - he sat near the top of the pyramid. One of the things that was intriguing about Henry Hill in real life was that owing to his upbringing he was unusually close to the RL Paul Vario, having an surprising level of access for a non-made man street-level mechanic.
A point driven home later when she is shown wearing the same sort of pantsuits and having the same hairstyles as the other wives. She started out country club, but quickly transitioned to blue collar mob wife.
Like schnooks.
This article shows the real life counterparts of the movie’s characters, including Karen Hill.
Another movie that made this point in a humorous way was Ghost Dog, where the old mafia guys’ headquarters are a back room they rent from from a Chinese guy, and they have trouble making the rent.
if you don’t know at the end of Goodfellas Henry picks up the paper living in a suburb. as a tribute to Goodfellas every season of the Sopranos starts with Tony picking up the paper at his suburban house. and for the last season Tony tells Carmela he is not picking up the paper again. 
That was one of the themes of the movie; you can’t succeed in the Mafia. If you fail then you fail (and probably get killed for not producing enough). But if you succeed then you also fail. You being a successful criminal means you now have money and you’re surrounded by people who steal money.
Respect among thieves? That’s a joke. The whole point of being a criminal is being willing to break rules when it’s in your interest. Mobsters are just as willing to break the Mafia’s rules as they are the law. The only thing that keeps mobsters in line is the fear of retaliation. And when you know you’re surrounded by people who you know would betray you, the temptation is to betray them first.
IIRC, wasn’t Hill kicked out of Witness Protection because he kept giving interviews?
More because he kept getting arrested.
Sounds like Vinnie Antonelli.
Loosely based on the life of Henry Hill, the same man who was the basis of Goodfellas (1990), after he went into witness protection program. The films’ respective writers, Nicholas Pileggi and Nora Ephron, are husband and wife.
I’m not sure it’s about old money vs new money rather than the fact that having money doesn’t stop you from being crass. Can you think of any prominent individual in the US today who was born into wealth, lived all his life in wealth (despite some bankruptcies) and still has less class than a high school drop out meth-addicted trucker? Conversely, you can be working class and avoid bad skin, too much make-up, badly matched clothes and domestic abuse.
The point of the scene is that money doesn’t make you a better person and the attraction of the mob life is gaudy gold-platting.
”Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup.”
As portrayed in the unacknowledged sequel.
Stranger
How is Henry able to sign for anything at all? 
Presumably since he’s Karen’s guest at a country club her family is members of so would she be the one to sign?