Do you know how excited we are? We're really, really excited!
That's because a movie adaptation of Jordan Belfort's best-selling memoir "The Wolf of Wall Street" is slated to start filming in New York this August.
It's the story of a penny stockbroker who ran a pump and dump firm called Stratton-Oakmont on Long Island. Think drugs, parties, and globe trotting during the good times. (They even did legitimate deals, like take Steve Madden public.)
But then there were the bad times. Stratton-Oakmont had a number of completely illegal dealings involving corruption at high levels of the corporate banking world, and even the mob. The bad times, as you can see, were really bad.
When all was said and done, Belfort had to spend 20 months in jail and his family and fortune were lost.
This true story took place in the 1990s in a boiler room type atmosphere of hungry young traders.
Long Island-based brokerage house Stratton-Oakmont had a short run. By 1998, founder Jordan Belfort was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering.
During the run, though, Belfort (a kid who used to hustle ice on Long Island beaches) hired young, hungry, hardworking employees, some of whom hadn't even graduated from high school. They were known as "Strattonites."
The "Strattonites" stuck to Belfort's cold call scripts, drove up the prices of stocks, and partied. Hard.
Some of that partying included midget tossing.
That's right midget tossing. Not to mention the hookers, globe trotting, and eating at expensive New York City restaurants (that got destroyed)...
And drugs, of course, Belfort ('The Wolf') and his crew did a lot of them.
In his autobiography, Belfort details doing a lot of hardcore drugs when he was at the top of his Wall Street game in the 90s.
Here's what he told CNBC's Jane Wells:
Belfort says at the height of his drug problem, he was taking 22 different medications: 20 quaaludes a day, balanced out by cocaine, the morphine, xanax, valium, etc. You name it, he abused it. I said to him, "Even if half of this is true (skeptical as always) how are you alive?" He says he was just really good about balancing it all out.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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