The New York Post is reporting that former Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort spotted an acquaintance from his drug-fueled Wall Street wild days in a gallery of images of homeless people sleeping on the streets in New York City. The man is thought to be William Preston King, a contemporary of Belfort’s from the wild days of Wall Street chronicled in the 2013 film. Preston was not characterized in the movie, but his family thinks the thin, gaunt man sleeping on pizza boxes is the former high-flying stockbroker who once worked for Merrill Lynch and Oppenheimer & Co before battling addiction. “It was a crazy time. And that lifestyle certainly took its toll on people. That whole era was just wild, like a different world,” Belfort told the Daily News.
Happy 80th Birthday Social Security
Eighty years after its inception, 8 out of 10 Americans still plan to rely on Social Security to fund their retirement. Friday marks the 80th anniversary of the Social Security Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. And according to a recent survey by AARP, employees are still counting on it. About a third of the over 1,200 both retired and non-retired adults surveyed said Social Security was the income source they use or plan to use the most. And yet, 64 percent of those still working worry Social Security income won’t be there for them.
Groundbreaking Professor Makes Major Bequest
According to the National Law Journal, Dawn Clark Netsch, the first full-time female faculty member at Northwestern Law School, has bequeathed the school $5 million for scholarships and loan assistance for students interested in going into public-interest law. A noted collector of modern art, she also donated three pieces to the school, including a Roy Lichtenstein painting titled “Wallpaper With Blue Floor Interior” (itself worth about $20k). Netsch, who passed away in 2013, graduated from the school in 1952 when female law students were rare, and joined the faculty in 1965 (even rarer). She taught constitutional and state and local government law at Northwestern for the next 45 years. Not wanting to limit herself, she also spent 18 years as an Illinois state Senator and was elected state comptroller in 1990 before an ultimately unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 1994. Now this beloved civil servant and educator is giving back in a different way.
Tech Trumps The Street For Brightest Biz Students
Used to be that for Harvard MBA grads, the place to go straight after getting that degree was to a Wall Street bank. Not anymore. According to Bloomberg, the trend away from Wall Street has been going on for a while. In 2007, just 13 percent of Harvard biz school grads went into investment banking or trading. Last year, that was down to 5 percent and all indications are that the number will drop to 4 percent this year. And among Harvard's Baker Scholars -- the best of the best -- just one expressed interest in Wall Street. "When we hear that our classmates managed to acquire a position with an investment bank, we say 'Congratulations,''' one student said. "But we are thinking, 'I'm sorry to hear that.''' So where are all these newly minted graduates going? Technology companies, of course.