ABSTRACT
While ‘they’ are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jordan’s boastful confession also applies to us, the viewers of The Wolf of Wall Street, insofar as we, too, serve as potential victims of his misdirection. The ‘bazooka’ is one of the many fraudulent initial public offerings (IPOs), Belfort oversaw at Stratton Oakmont, the faux-patrician firm he created to target and fleece ‘the wealthiest one percent of Americans’. Addressing the camera, Jordan begins to explain in a very clear, straightforward manner exactly what IPOs are and how he and his partners manipulated them: ‘Now, as the firm taking the company public, we set the initial share price then sold those shares right back to our friends.’ Suddenly, however, he cuts himself off, nominally because his explanation is already too complex for us to grasp: ‘Look, I know you’re not following what I’m saying anyway, right? That’s OK, that doesn’t matter. The real question is this, was all this legal?’ Jordan’s answer? ‘Absolutely fucking not.’ Rather than stop there, he continues, as if to excuse his transgression and, again, divert our attention: ‘But we were making more money than we knew what to do with.’ Is the money, then, the ‘real question’ or is it another smoking gun?
