Skinning the Wolf

After watching Wolf of Wall Street I have one thing to say about life on Wall Street: it is just like a Frat house with a Black American Express card. Welcome to the $$$ brotherhood.

The lavish spending, the class A drugs, the sex with whores and reckless hedonism became a lifestyle synonymous with traders on Wall Street; a lifestyle paid for by the hard earned dollars or family inheritance of clients. For traders the larger the spread the bigger the champagne bottle being popped and splashed.

To be a top dog in trading or as a broker you had to know how to handle your clients, or else you would end up working for a rating agency, as Michael Lewis describes in his book, The Big Short, the “rejects of Wall Street”. You also had to be familiar with the three blows on Wall Street: cocaine, job and “blow me”. You basically had to be a shark, or else get out of the tank because you will be eaten alive by one.

The sad part is I used to look up to those people. Wondering how they had so much talent and made so much money… I went to a house party in London and each person’s CV outshone the other both in terms of companies, JP Morgan, Citi and the like, to job positions, CDO trader and Senior FX trader. I left disgusted. Trips to the bathroom in pairs wasn’t because one needed to wipe the other person’s ass, it was to snort cocaine together. Work hard, party harder? I couldn’t fathom myself a part of this social circle.

I commend Jordan Belfort for having the guts to spill the beans on what really goes on inside the Wall Street skyscrapers and Park Lane penthouses . He pulled no punches describing in detail how self-indulgent, destructive and out of control he and his fellow suited bandits became. Perhaps his tell-all book was his way of repenting, or else it can be taken as a cautionary tale of what could happen to you if engulfed by the megalomania capitalists in suit and ties or pin skirts and Hermes purses.