<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 989" data-quote="RichKid" data-source="post: 392784"
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Is this serious?<br />
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This is like saying if a woman dresses a certain way, she deserved to be raped. Are you kidding me?<br />
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So if someone calls up your grandparents, confuses them, and has them send the scammer money, they deserved it? (This happens hundreds of times daily).<br />
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Just because the movie came out in 2013, that doesn't mean the business/societal conditions were identical to the time period when the events actually took place.<br />
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Remember that this guy perpetrated his crimes in the 90s. In '98, when he was caught, only 26% of American households had access to the internet, and even then, doing your due diligence wasn't as simple as logging on and reading the financial statements of various companies.<br />
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Source: <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf</a><br />
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This guy <u>TOOK ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE</u>. Because someone is weaker than you, or not as intelligent as you, or more gullible than you, or what have you, that gives you the right to EXPLOIT them? And not only that, but they deserved it? This isn't the F*cking middle ages.<br />
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I think people are confusing what exactly happened here. It's not as if Belfort was selling an under performing asset in which people bought into. That is fine, provided proper documents are provided.. people buy shitty assets every day, and there's nothing immoral or illegal about it..<br />
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But Belfort was offering assets in which he deliberately deceived his investors and pump and dumped shares via associates that held his money in trust. That is 100% illegal.<br />
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It's not like this guy was stealing insignificant amounts of money.. this guy destroyed people's livelihoods.<br />
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The forum is predominately populated by young men with a certain ideology (guilty as charged). But does no one have any shred of human decency? (95% of people that have taken the opposite side on this issue are under 25).<br />
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<u><b>I don't need to step over and exploit people on my way to the top.</b></u><br />
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Entrepreneurs provide value. They make life better. They don't steal or destroy.<br />
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This thread should be locked down. It serves no purpose. (other than exposing the rather nasty/skewed viewpoints of certain members).<br />
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As I said originally... this guy is a great salesman, but a horrible human being. That's all there is to it.<br />
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You can be a great salesman, and a great person, or you can use your talents for nefarious purposes. It's your life and your choice.<br />
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But nobody deserves to be taken advantage of.
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</blockquote>Very very well said, agree 100%. This is almost exactly what I wrote in my posts.<br />
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I've read a few times that Belfort said 95% of the business he did was legitimate. That's a complete lie. The ratio was prob the other way around.</div>
