When it comes to being greedy, Wall Street does it best. The marketers and stockbrokers avidly seek people to try and make investments in things that they think will make them richer. In doing so the stockbrokers make a pretty penny off of what is made. One example of this is Jordan Belfort, who was a real person which the movie (Wolf of Wall Street) and book were based off of.
Jordan Belfort started off as a lower class person trying to make a stable living. Until one day he started working for different firms which involved the stocks, as to which he became quite good at getting people to buy stocks. At one point he realized how easily he could make a lot of money doing this, so he opened up his own firm with a couple of his friends. However, this firm was not based off of making other people money but rather taking the money that they would make and keeping it for themselves. They would convince people to buy stock in something that they would inflate the price. They would make quite a bit of money off of this and the buyer would lose all of what they invested.
This is a prime example of how money can make monsters. In the beginning Jordan was a nice man who had a lovely girlfriend who didn't mind too much that they were not rich. He was only going to make enough to marry her, but once he started making money he got sucked in. All he could do was make money, and whatever he made was never enough. He kept wanting to make more and more all at the price of stealing people's money when he said he would make them money. When he is rich he also begins doing quite a bit of drugs, always looking for the best high. He would drive under the influence with no hesitation, because he had the money to get himself out of anything. He would never have done any of these things if he had not been looking to cheat people out of their money.
In the end it all caught up to him. Law enforcers were finally able to capture him for all of his illegal acts, mainly that he had been cheating people out of their money. After he had done his time, he was reduced to a simple salesman. He went from being one of the wealthiest, to someone who gave presentations on how to sell things making little money. So yes, money can make monsters out of people, once people are entranced in its grasp it is hard to get out of it.
Hey Zach,
ReplyDeleteI thought your choice of Jordan Belfort was a great example for a real life monster. Jordan Belfort was a self-made monster, who thrived on making his own money from other people's. His greed fueled him to extreme heights, from doing things like cocaine just to keep going throughout the day and stay alert. Belfort was selfish in a sense but wanted to keep his business going for not only the good of himself, but the good of his friends and employees. Eventually his evil brought him to his end, but even since then he has found ways to reminisce on his old self and bring in the money. Money is the power that feeds the monster here and Jordan Belfort/Wolf of Wall Street is a great real life example within the past 25 years or so.