Jordan Belfort: A Product of his Environment or his Personality?
One of the most infamous characters that captured the public’s attention this past year is Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker better known as the “Wolf of Wall Street.” Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the reenactment of Belfort’s first book titled, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” became a public spectacle when he aired his crime-ridden past and the momentous downfall of his life in his autobiographies turned blockbuster hit (McFarland et al., 2013). Belfort, who started his career by no unusual circumstances, became a multi-millionaire in the late 90’s selling a “pump and dump” scheme to unsuspecting investors (“Jordan Belfort Biography,” 2014). According to his autobiography, which admittedly could very well be an exaggeration of himself, claims that Belfort was a natural stockbroker, landing his first job because of an impressive sales pitch of a pen in his initial interview. Once he developed a reputation on Wall Street, Belfort opened his own firm called Stratton Oakland. He details the extraordinary company culture that he was part of and explains how it led to his eventual arrest for fraud and money laundering. His pompous personality is emphasized by his anecdotes of sex, drugs and money that were the three most important aspects in his life, whether it was at work, or in his personal life. It is clear that Belfort sported a type of superiority complex, as well as some kind of inherent drive for this type of lifestyle. Once he reached the top, no expense was too much, and he actively sought the attention from his peers for his style of living. Belfort’s personality was excessively grandiose and eccentric, revealing a sort of maladaptive manner in dealing ...
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...r as restitution for the victims of the pump and dump scheme (Haglund, 2013). Though it may be easy to blame Wall Street culture for sucking him into a lifestyle of drugs, sex and money, it is probably just as equally the fault of Belfort’s personality. He was the right type of person who could thrive in this immoral environment without feeling empathy for those he was affecting. His extrovert personality made him a fantastic salesman, however it also made him susceptible to getting into trouble whether it was with drugs, or sinking his yacht. His personality did not just allow him to function at a higher level in this culture, but it also drove him to this kind of environment in the first place. In the end, Belfort was a product of both his environment and personality, and without one of them, it is likely that we would have never known the Wolf of Wall Street.
On March 5, 2004, Martha Stewart, a successful business woman and the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was sentenced by the jury to five months in prison at a minimum-security federal prison, another five months of home confinement along with 19 months of probation and $30,00 fine. Stewart was found guilty on four counts in what seemed to be known as white-collar crime. In this paper, I will briefly explain, identify and answer respectively in order on the three topics of, what crime did Martha Stewart commit, what evidence did the jury appear to find most convincing and whether should Stewart have received prison time. I will be using my own ideas along with the researches from reputable and credible sources to support my ideas.
In Karen Hos’ Liquidated, she aims to study the relationships between corporate America and the world’s greatest financial center. . . Wall Street. The. She puts all her three years of research in her ethnography and thus on the very first page of chapter one, we can already understand Hos’ determination to understand what Wall Street is all about. The first main theme explained is the relations on Wall Street that are based on a culture of domination of staff members, their irresponsibility dealing with corporate America, and constant changes that occur during this process.
To achieve this, “banking firms provide [them] with a way to maintain [their] elite status in society by providing avenues to wealth and power that other professions do not” (179). They leave them unconsciously with an ultimatum, to either continue living their prestigious lifestyle and be the in the top with the elites, or settle for lower than what they’ve worked for, which is any other career path. Students who attend Princeton and Harvard who aspire to become teachers or writers are told they are settling for less than what they deserve and will be “more happy” with an investment banking career. There is a subtle form of manipulation being acted upon prospective students from investment bankers which is hidden by all of the positive, glamorous stigmas of Wall Street. To fully understand Wall Street as a whole, someone must know the small components that make it come together as a whole. This is shown through Karen Ho’s observations such as learning that students at Princeton and Harvard do not need to hold a finance degree to obtain a job on Wall Street. Whereas, Yale and Brown students must have a finance degree and are forced to show their abilities at a higher level than Princeton and Harvard students. Underneath all the dashing appearances and smart conversations on Wall Street, there is a hidden bias and a constant manipulation system in order for them to get what they want. The small components of Wall Street consist of their “small” priorities,
Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the priorities of Americans shifted from a patriotic concern for the country’s welfare to a concern for self-advancement. “A 1980 study by UCLA and American Council on Education indicated that college freshmen were more interested in status, power, and money than at any time during the past 15 years. Business Management was the most popular major” (Whitley). Similarly, in the graphic novel, Sin City written by Frank Miller, wealth, power and status play an important role in the outcome of and setting of the book. The main character, Marv, is a strong, lonely man who has a personal vendetta against the most powerful man of Sin City, Cardinal Roark. Miller shines light on the culturally prevalent desire for power, status and wealth, which ocurred in the late 1970s. The purpose of this book is to show his readers, the adults of the 1990s, what kinds of mistakes and corruption occurred in the generation before them. He does this by portraying wealthy figures as all-powerful, exposing the environment that unequal distribution of wealth breeds, and he uses Marv as a figure for the audience to identify with.
Throughout Chapter 6, author Matt Taibbi conveys to the reader how wealthy businessmen attempted to destroy Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Canadian-based bank firm. He discusses how Fairfax employees and executives were blackmailed and harassed. Spyro Contogouris, the ringleader of this blackmailing scheme, would call employees and hang up, send letters describing the future prosecution of Prem Watsa, CEO of Fairfax, and distribute rumors of Watsa leaving the country in fear of being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Moreover, Contogouris pretended to be a FBI agent to get information about Fairfax from Trevor Ambridge, an employee based in London. Little did Contogouris know, Ambridge was working as security personnel for
The Eron Scandal is thought to be a standout amongst the most famous inside American history. An Eron of occasions is considered by numerous students of history and market analysts alike to have been an informal outline for a contextual investigation on White Collar Crimes. ("Enron Scandal Summary - Finance | Laws.com," n.d.)White Collar Crime is characterized as peaceful, monetarily based criminal action ordinarily attempted inside of a setting in which its members hold propelled training as to business that is thought to be prestigious. ("Enron Scandal Summary - Finance | Laws.com," n.d.) The accompanying occurred amidst the Enron Scandal. Eron had great success in their early years. Though the period regulation inside of a business and corporate
Bernie Madoff is one of the greatest conman in history. The Bernie Madoff scandal takes the gold as one of the top ponzi scheme in America. Madoff started the Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960. Starting off as a penny stock trader with five thousand dollars, earned from his workings as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer, his firm began to grow with the support of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern, who helped by referred a group of close friends and family. Originally, his firm made markets by the National Quotations Bureau’s Pink Sheets. However, in order to compete with the bigger firms that were trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor, his firm started to use very intelligent computer software that help distributed their quotes in second’s rater then minutes. This software later became the NASDAQ that we know today. In December of 2008 Bernard Madoff confessed that he had embezzling billions of dollars from investors. It is estimated to have lasted nearly two decades, and stolen approximately $64.8 billion. On December 11, 2008 he was arreste...
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sexuality he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the life and also the author, Jordan Belfort. Jordan becomes discontent with his everyday life and realizes his talent for selling. As he continuously gains more money, he begins using more drugs. Way more drugs. Jordan starts his own brokerage firm named Stratton-Oakmont. Jordan hires a staff of, well, criminals to help him sell cheap stocks. They would sell all of these cheap stocks to their customers, then Belfort would buy large amounts of these stocks, running up the price, and then dump it. Finally, Jordan begins running into a lot of legal trouble as the FBI is on to the ways his brokerage firm works. Although Belfort has the FBI watching him very closely, he continues to spend huge sums of money on things such as boats, cars, houses, strippers/hookers, and last, but certainly not least, drugs. As Jordan’s already massive drug problem continues to escalate, he has to keep a very large portion of his money in a European account to hide it from the Feds. Belfort ends up going to prison for 22 months for fraud of his
In ‘Paul’s Case’ Paul has created a fantasy world in which he becomes entranced, even to the point of lying to classmates about the tales of grandeur and close friendships that he had made with the members of the stock company. This fantasy falls apart around him as “the principle went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house” (Cather 8). The fantasy fell apart further when the stories he had told his classmates reached the ears of the women of the stock company, who unlike their lavish descriptions from Paul were actually hardworking women supporting their families. Unable to cope with the reality of working for Denny & Carson, he stole the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank to live the life of luxury in New York. Only a person who felt backed into a corner would attempt something so unsound. After his eight days in paradise, he is again backed into a corner by the reality of his middle class upbringing, and the dwindling time he has before his father reaches New York to find him. The final way out for Paul is his suicide, for which an explanation would be “In the end, he fails to find his security, for it was his grandiose “picture making mechanism” that made his life so deardful.” (Saari). With all the securities of his fantasy life finally gone, his mental instability fully comes to light as he jumps in front of the train to end his
In both William Dean Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Octopus by Frank Norris, a character is faced with the moral issues involved with operating his business. Howells' character, Silas Lapham (The Colonel) and Norris' Magnus Derrick are both desirous to have a prominent position in their respective societies, but are in the precarious situation of having to deploy immoral methods to achieve this coveted stature during the course of harder times. Each man has aspirations to be powerful, prestigious, famous, and/or wealthy. In combination with their lack of humility for their lofty position in society and their over ambitious definition of success, both are caused great distress on the path and during the fight to reach this egotistic plateau. The image created through their business venture became the primary tool to evaluate their own personal vision of success, and in doing so, the two men's morals and values became tainted, family relations were hurt and even devastated, in addition to creating social debacles that caused incredible harm to many others.
The stock market is an enigma to the average individual, as they cannot fathom or predict what the stock market will do. Due to this lack of knowledge, investors typically rely on a knowledgeable individual who inspires the confidence that they can turn their investments into a profit. This trust allowed Jordan Belfort to convince individuals to buy inferior stocks with the belief that they were going to make a fortune, all while he became wealthy instead. Jordan Belfort, the self-titled “Wolf of Wall Street”, at the helm of Stratton Oakmont was investigated and subsequently indicted with twenty-two counts of securities fraud, stock manipulation, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He went to prison at the age of 36 for defrauding an estimated 100 million dollars from investors through his company (Belfort, 2009). Analyzing his history of offences, how individual and environmental factors influenced his decision-making, and why he desisted from crime following his prison sentence can be explained through rational choice theory.
Sutherland believed that social forces could support and individual’s criminal behavior, and ability to commit crimes and deviant acts (Leclair, 2015). One of the reasons that Sutherland gave to why individuals commit crimes was because of industrialization, and the rise of capitalism. Moreover, the rise of capitalism and the increase in industrialization caused more social mobility (Schlegel & Weisburd, 1992). Before the rise in capitalism, individuals were satisfied with meeting the economic and social needs of their family. These people were not motivated by the need to make money and have material things (Schlegel & Weisburd, 1992). In contrast, as capitalism and industrialization moved into society, social disorganization began; meaning, ones values, attitudes, and beliefs changed. The primary agents of social control; such as, family and homogenous neighborhoods, broke down as a result of social mobility (Schlegel & Weisburd, 1992). Individuals began to be influenced by the power of wealth and materialism, this encouraged criminal behavior. The executives of Enron (Lay, Skilling, Pai, and Fastow) were motivated by power and greed. They were caught up in the capitalist ideal to make as much money as possible and to be powerful. Lay, Skilling, Pai, and Fastow came from respectful families. The documentary gave insight into the life of Kenneth Lay. He came from a religious family. He was the son of a Baptist preacher. However, it seemed that Lay always had a motivation to achieve more in his life. Ultimately, he forgot his ideals, primary agents of socialization, and went into the world of business. Sutherland would say this increase in social mobility has increased his propensity to commit crimes. He let his motivation for power and wealth cloud his judgement and ability to think clearly. Another example of the breakdown of
According to the short story “The bet”, we can see the change in the young lawyer’s book that he read. From popular entertainment readings to medical research to classical works (Chekhov 1889), I can guess that the lawyer’s thought from feeling lonely and empty to getting rid of loneliness and enjoying knowledge to owning his own thought about what is the most important and happiness in the world. There are many things that can be much more important than fame and money. I think that when he decided to walk out the room, though he lose money 2 millions and around 15 years time, he become rich in his mind. The price, which he has cost, is worth to what he has got in his mind. During this years reading, his body seems to be imprison, his mind is traveling any corners of world. Maybe some people cannot understand that why he didn’t stay in the room for just only 5 hours. I think this decision is to show the dignity of his mind, his wisdom and his contempt for money worship. Maybe he used to be greed of money and fame, but now he want to prove him to be
This movie starts off as Jordan Belfort, the main character in the movie, losing his job as a stockbroker in Wall Street. After losing his job, he goes and gets a job in a Long Island brokerage room. In the brokerage room, he sells penny stocks. Thanks to him being aggressive in his selling skills, he was able to make a profit. With the new income, he gives his wife a bracelet and she asked him why doesn’t he go after the people that can afford to lose money, not the middle-class people or lower income people. That is when he gets the idea to get a lot of young people and train them to become the best stock brokers.