Watching Wolf of Wall Street

Yesterday evening I got myself to watch Wolf of Wall Street, naturally curious because everybody loves a movie portraying the excesses of financiers, no?

Since the global financial crisis, there was the Michael Moore love story on capitalism (Capitalism: A Love Story), the Matt Damon-narrated documentary (Inside Job), the not really a second coming of Gordon Gekko (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps), the depiction of investment bankers burning the midnight oil (Margin Call), and now we have the Wolf of Wall Street.

All of them showing that life is good at Wall Street (actually, Stratton Oakmont is in Long Island), and this piques the interest of the 99% who want to understand how these guys get so rich so fast so easily. It's strange watching these movies because even though a guy like Jordan Belfort is supposedly not a guy you want people to idolize, I get the feeling that people do want to be like Jordan Belfort.

After all, as the financier mastermind he only got himself 22 months imprisonment, whilst the pawn shoemaker, Steve Madden, got 30.