The year I
turned 26, I earned 49 million dollars (P2.25 billion) which really pissed me
off because it was three shy of a million a week. Thus said Leonardo di Caprio playing
real-life Wall Street stockbroker and convicted financial scammer Jordan
Belfort in the film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
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| Making money by the truckloads (photo from the internet) |
Throughout
the nearly three hours of debauchery depicted in the movie, the audience was
treated to the underhanded tactics that Belfort and his crew employed to make
millions of dollars. They “pumped and dumped” stocks, meaning they bought
chunks of cheap penny stocks, hyped them and pressured unwitting customers to
buy, thereby driving up the price, at which point they dumped the stocks, resulting
in a price collapse and ultimately leaving their customers with virtually
worthless stocks. Another way Belfort
enriched himself was by manipulating the
initial public offerings of firms like Steve Madden Corp. And while doing all
of this, Belfort and his cohorts sought “executive stress relief” by way of sex
orgies and drugs and other extreme behavior.
They inaugurated a viewing elevator by having a female sales associate do a
blowjob on a client in full view of everybody else.
Is all of this legal? Absolutely not. Leo
as Belfort also said.
The film is
glossy, boasting a stellar cast. It oozed with manic energy that engaged the
viewers. But at least two things disturbed me about the movie. It was not the non-stop
gratuitous sex nor the “F” word being said an average of 2.8 times per minute,
though some editing could have been done to tighten the movie. It was that the
victims were virtually ignored, with the emphasis on all the carousing, and on Belfort getting off too easily. In a three-hour movie, not even one single frame was devoted to the victims of the scams, some of who were said to be blue collar workers such as garbage men, and postal employees.
A number of critics
have likened di Caprio’s Belfort to the despicable slave owner Calvin Candie
that the actor played in "Django Unchained". But the suffering victims of Django Untamed were shown and Candie did suffer
as well at the hands of an avenging slave.
In the case of the Wolf, he was shown
making a deal with the Feds to rat out his cohorts for a reduced sentence of
four years instead of the thirty years he would have gotten if he went on trial.
And towards the end of the movie, he was introduced as “the world’s greatest
sales trainer” by the real Belfort himself, playing a cameo role. Not bad for someone who allegedly scammed some $150 million from an
assortment of people.
In this
regard, the film fails to be the cautionary tale it was touted to be, and
instead may be seen as glorifying the excesses and the behavior that made them
possible. The heretofore virtually
unknown Belfort was in practically all of the scenes. His having been
portrayed by the charming Mr. Di
Caprio, may even make his abhorrent
behavior seem less distasteful.
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| Money coming out of their ears and other places? (photo from the internet) |
Dr. Albert Bandura,
one of the most influential psychologists of all time said, “…most human
behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one
forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this
coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Social Learning Theory, 1977)
Thus, people
can learn that they can get away with something merely by watching others get
away with it. So if scammers get away
with scams, are punished lightly, or can make deals by implicating their
cronies, then others will also try to get away with such behavior. Interestingly,
the real Belfort said in interviews that he idolized the fictional character
Gordon Gekko in the film “Wall Street”. The film was released in 1987, a year
before Belfort made the aforementioned $49 million that pissed him off.
Compared to Belfort however, Gekko who thrived on insider trading and in
acquisitions, would seem like a character from a Hallmark movie.
Five years
after Belfort’s 2003 conviction, the United States went into a financial crisis
that exploded into a global crisis. This
was traced to the subprime debacle and the shenanigans in Wall Street.
According to news reports, hardly anyone had been jailed for that even if it
bankrupted not only individuals, and corporations, but even a whole country
(Iceland).
This sad
state of affairs is also observed in the Philippines. There have been a number
of bank closures where fraud was suspected and charges brought against erring
bank owners and officers. Only a handful had been convicted so far.
Similarly, in the recent past, there were
a number of high profile financial scams and an undetermined number of minor
ones. There was the Franc Swiss internet-based
scam which reportedly duped investors of $150 million (P6.75 billion). Lately, there
surfaced Aman Futures Trading Group which reportedly scammed P12 billion from
12,000 people including a town mayor by promising 50% to 80% return on
investment in twenty days. The perpetrators of both scams are yet to be
incarcerated.
Among the
highly publicized cases, one perpetrator was jailed. Rose Baladjao of Multitel, who was convicted
for defrauding investors some P20 billion was sentenced to life, but her
sentence was reduced to twenty years in 2012. One of her cohorts , Cyrus Yao
Hao even did a copycat with his Royal Mancehster Five which reportedly bilked
investors of P2 billion.
These scams
recur despite warnings from government agencies like the SEC, the BSP, and the
PDIC. This is because of unmitigated
greed all around. Greed of the perpetrators and investors, who want instant
returns and believe in get-rich-quick schemes.
Unless the
punishment is made to fit the crime, and the people are educated on risky
behavior, this recurrence will continue.
Meanwhile, I
hope those who watch “The Wolf of Wall Street” will find more affinity with the
diligent FBI agent played by Kyle Chandler who resists bribes and does the
right thing, rather than with Belfort who was brought to life with the oily
charm of Leo di Caprio.
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| (photo from the internet) |
Having said that, I still hope Leo wins
the Oscar.
This article was published in the Business Mirror, January 28, 2014
This article was published in the Business Mirror, January 28, 2014
