Jordan Belfort — what an asshole. Such an asshole, in fact, that he ends his book right before anything truly terrible happens to him. Therefore the reader must wait until he releases his next book to find out how exactly the law punishes him for his asshole-ness (my guess–barely, if at all).
“They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites.” — everyone in this book
In case you’ve somehow missed the commercials for the Leonardo DiCaprio movie (which I haven’t seen, and don’t really have any desire to now…), Jordan Belfort, a.k.a. the Wolf of Wall Street, made a lot of money at a young age doing some not so legal stuff on Wall Street. He accumulates so much money, in fact, that laundering it becomes a probably. Luckily he has a very expensive drug habit (and hooker habit!) to blow a lot of it on, not to mention his lovely and expensive wife.
I’m slagging on the book, but really, Belfort’s insane antics become entertaining after a while. He has a fantastic sense of humor about a lot of it, in his hindsight, and I found myself simultaneously amused and revolted by his antics. The one thing I really looked forward to, however, he saved for the next book: his comeuppance.
Still, I found The Wolf of Wall Street (the man & the book) to be diverting and informative. I certainly know quite a bit more about the stock market now than I did going in, as well as Belfort’s other areas of expertise: cheating people, spending money, denying a drug habit (his back hurts!), smuggling cash, sucker others–the list goes on. Not so sure that’s a good thing, however.
The book may be entertaining, but urh! I hate that the horrible people of the world go unpunished! And, you know, not just unpunished, but they actually made a movie about him that makes him look like a rock star.