Before Bernie Madoff, a stock broker named Jordan Belfort’s graced Wall Street and his legacy will remain on Wall Street for decades to come. The man was an egomaniac who had the best yachts, women and even abused drugs.
He lived a grandeur life but lost it all as fast as he gained it. Belfort was a difficult man; he dropped his motor yacht, helicopter and seaplane into the depths of the ocean after insisting on going into a storm despite the captain warning. To entertain his Wall Street friends, Belfort threw midgets on the trading floor.
With all this craziness going on, Jordan Belfort and his company milked out investors for more than two hundred millions dollars, an embezzlement that saw him stay in prison. He now laments that he sought instant gratification by being childish, emotionally unstable and insecure. He even goes on to say that he admires Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko in the financial movie Wall Street and Pretty Woman’s Richard Gere. He now knows that he had everything most people work for all their lives and that he blew it all away.
Jordan Belfort was so extravagant it has been said he racked up charges in a hotel totaling $700,000 and also bought a white Ferrari because he had seen an actor in a popular show driving it.
At his present age of forty five, Jordan lives in a three bedroom house in a less expensive part of Los Angeles. He has made progress however and has paid investors $14 million and still has $96 million to go. It would be difficult to believe that Jordan only owns a nine thousand pound Bulgari gold watch and a painting of his yacht.
He lives close to Nadine his ex-wife who was a beer model but is still friends and shares the responsibility of taking care of their children with her. He loves his children and proclaims himself as a “soccer dad”.
The Wolf of Wall Street from Queens started as a sales person in the meat industry. He went on to open Stratton Oakmont, a stockbroker business based in Long Island. He recruited straight out of college money hungry individuals and told them that they had to convince the customer to sign up with his investment firm. The brokers of Belfort’s firm would drive up the shares and then Belfort would sell the large number of shares owned lowering the price of the stock and causing investors massive losses.
Belfort first made five thousand dollars and soon made a million. At first he was nervous but later on convinced himself that all brokers do it on Wall Street. Belfort has written a book and regrets his earlier way of life.