Jordan Belfort's Impact On The World

Our world has been influence and affected by millions of events and people everyday. Some people influence the world in small ways, such as the inventor of a toothpick. Other people, such as the person who designed the first space shuttle to land on the moon, have had an extremely large impact on today's world. The person we will be talking about today is Jordan Belfort. Most people know him as the "Wolf of Wall Street". He is a famous stockbroker from the 1990's who made million by operating a penny stock room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. He is also famous for his role in swindling millions of dollars from his investors. He was well known for his usage of the "pump and dump" scheme, which is a form of stock fraud that involves

artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through fake positive statements, in order to turn the cheaply bought stock into one they can sell at a much higher price. Jordan Belfort was born in Queens, New York, on July 9, 1962. He was the son of an accountant, and was a natural business man from the start. In the 1980's he ran a meat business. After his business failed and he was forced to shutdown he began selling stocks, in the year of 1987. He eventually made his way into the world of stocks.

Through these couple of years he came to learn all about the stock market, which led him to start his own trading company, Stratton Oakmont. In the year 1989 Belfort met his soon to be long time business partner Danny Porush. These two raked in the mother load through the "pump and dump" scheme and made themselves millionaires. At one point Stratton Oakmont employed over 1,000 stock brokers and was involved in stock issues, which totaled to more than $1 billion dollars. The richer Belfort became, the more he started to spend. He blew money on unnecessary things such as a mansion, sports cars, a helicopter, a yacht, and a bunch of other expensive toys. Through all this Belfort developed a extreme drug problem. He was involved in many incidences under the influence including wrecking his helicopter in his yard and sinking his yacht. At Stratton Oakmont wreck less behavior was encouraged and many employees took place in the alcohol and drug abuse. During its nearly its entire history it was targeted by law enforcement officials.

Later on the F.B.I soon sought out to put an end to Stratton Oakmont, as breaking the rules always catches up to a person.

Soon later found himself out of the brokerage business. Stratton Oakmont was forced to reach a settlement with the SEC , which a fine for the company and a lifetime ban from working in the securities industry. Eventually more and more legal woes kept piling up for Belfort's company. The NSAD got rid of Stratton Oakmont from its association in 1996, and they were forced to be liquidated in order to pay its many fines and settlements. In 1999, Belfort made the decision to plead guilty to money laundering and also securities fraud. He agreed to cooperate with authorities in order to get a shortened prison sentence. In 2003, was fined for $120 million and a four year year prison sentence. Belfort's restitution agreement forced him to pay 50% towards restitution to the many people whom he defrauded up until the year 2008. Following this period, Belfort began negotiating a restitution payment plan with the government of the United States. The agreement required him to pay $ 10,000 per month for the rest of his life towards the restitution. This was after a judge ruled that Belfort was not required to pay 50% of his income after his

parole.

During his prison sentence he began an interest in writing.

One of Belfort's cell mates was well known comedian Tommy Chong. He encouraged Belfort the former stockbroker to write about his experiences and his life. The pair remained good friends after their release from prison, in which Belfort gave gave credit to Tommy Chong for his newfound career as a writer and motivational speaker. Once Belfort was released from prison he published his story, " The Wolf of Wall Street". He titled the book using one of his nicknames. The book told the story of his rise and fall in the world of the stock market. Belfort claimed that he is also putting the profits from his book towards the restitution. In 2014 the film " The Wolf of Wall Street" hit the box office and was a huge success. The movie was based on Belfort's book by the same title. In this movie it shares Belfort's story of power, excess, and greed that is so dark no one could even invent it. The movie also show some of Belfort's personal life. It shows the crazy relationship Belfort had with his wife as they ran a crazy household that consisted of their two children, a full-time staff of twenty people, bodyguards, and secret hidden cameras all over. In 2010 prosecutors said that Belfort had fled to Australia to avoid taxes and conceal his assets from his many victims, but later was proven false, and an official apology was later issued. Belfort also claimed that he intended to put all his royalty from his books and film be

turned over to his victims. This was proven false, claiming that he only put forth $21,000 of the $1.2 million he had made from the book and film.

Now Belfort uses his knowledge over the stock market to help people to understand the stock market and is also a motivational speaker. This is how Jordan Belfort has benefited the world most, through his teaching. He has now acted as a consultant to more than a hundred public companies and his story has been shared through almost every major newspaper and magazine in the world. Along the way he succumbed to the high life of a Wall Street broker and took a hard fall. He has taking his invaluable lessons from the many mistakes he has made throughout his life and has payed the price. Instead of giving up on his life, he has re-emerged as a portent force behind amazing business success. To this day Belfort's great knowledge about business allows him to transform and company into a wealthy business without sacrificing integrity or ethics. Belfort's highly effective training sessions can be structured to meet any business or individual's specific needs. His sessions range from hour talks to week long training sessions. They are ongoing consultations on how to actively and immensely increase the marketing and sales of each company's organization. Through his humorous and passionate style Belfort will train will train anyone on how to use the most powerful business system ever devised.

These days lives in Los Angeles, where he can be close to his children that he loves more than anything in the world. He operates his own company, called Straight Line, in which he provides sales training and training sessions aimed at making wealth. Belfort has now cleaned up his act and has been drug and alcohol free for more than five years, which he says is one of his greatest accomplishments. In a recent interview with a magazine he told the world, "I'm the wolf who became a more benevolent character."