>Since they can’t get back the stolen millions used to bankroll DiCaprio’s dreams, part of accomplishing justice in this case means the U.S. government now owns the rights and royalties of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Minor correction: U.S. government received a $60 million settlement from Red Granite Pictures, but not any rights to any film directly[0]. Obviously a big chunk of that $60 million derived from the royalties of The Wolf of Wall Street, but the government didn't get the rights and royalties directly.
The author might have confused it with the fact that the government was _attempting_ to seize the film rights during the court proceedings[1], but the final settlement didn't include these film rights.
But the movie wasn't a scam/fraud. The funding was stolen, the result of fraud. The moviw would have been a fraud if they collect a lot of money for it claiming Leonardo DiCaprio will star and Scorcese will direct, and then that doesn't actually happen bc they blow the money on booze.
Directly related book recommendation: Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, published 2018.
They book follows the founders of 1MDB, the quasi Malaysia soverign wealth fund wbhose investments included the founding of Red Granite the producers of Wolf of Wall Street, from pre-1MDB days through to it's demise. Quite quick and easy, repeats itself a bit and imho falls apart/seems rushed at the end, but a fascinating account of greed, corruption, and how easy it seems. Well worth a movie adaptation itself!
I'd go further and say don't even read the OP - which is just a summation of the original reporting from the book, and go to the book instead. The story is remarkable and it's hard to put the book down
That's really weird. Does it have something to do with its UK distribution rights or something?
Funny enough, I was able to find the Spanish version of the book on Amazon UK[0], but the English version apparently "will be released on September 12, 2019"[1] for Amazon UK.
I guess there exists a tiny niche market here where you can buy "early release" books from "early release" jurisdictions and ship it to "late release" jurisdictions.
Looking at Admissions/Deposits/Fees for the private English boarding school that Low went to (Harrow School), I was surprised at how "affordable" it actually is. /I/ couldn't afford it, but for the level of access you are giving your child to the world of the elite, £30k doesn't seem like its all THAT much money.
That sort of school then has all sorts of “optional but really compulsory” extra fees for things like trips abroad etc. If the sticker price is 30k per year, the actual one is probably around 40k.
For comparison, the average salary in UK is 28k before taxes.
40k gbp still isn't that much. That's around what the top boarding schools cost in the US. My main concern wouldn't be the sticker price but whether you need to come from the right "background" (e.g. not nouveau-riche) for your child to get accepted. To my understanding the top US boarding schools are less concerned with your financial pedigree, which makes sense given that most rich people in the US are nouveau-riche by British standards
I knew someone (from a proper upper-class English background) who went to Harrow, and hated every minute of it. I wouldn't subject my kids to that, even if I had the money
Married a gold-digger, difficult divorce, estranged from his children. Works in the medical field (though not as a doctor). Can't see that his time in Harrow conferred any advantages
Is it the responsibility of any project/startup to find out who the LPs are for a VC fund? Sometimes this information is not only inaccessible, it would be illegal for you to know. Especially in a case where - wait for it - a sovereign wealth fund might be involved.
So... call me crazy, but I don’t think Leonardo DiCaprio did anything wrong here. I’m sure he’s used to rich aholes giving him money and trying to buddy up with him all the time, why would one seem more suspicious than the others?
>As far as justice goes, it’s extremely poetic: a film about guys who believed they were above the law until they got caught by the feds was made by guys who believed they were above the law until they, too, got caught by the feds.
After having watched White Collar I usually say that about most accusations. We have all seen shows where an innocent person looks guilty. We somehow went from innocent until proven guilty to ridiculed and reviled until dead (and even that doesnt end it) regardless of the verdict or the reality.
Innocent until proven guilty is a legal standard, it is unreasonable and impractical to expect individuals to abide by it in their day to day life. Every day you are constantly making assessments on people based on the information you have, whether that’s in the context of a crime or otherwise. The justice system (in America especially) is not “fair” and does not treat guilt as the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” might lead you to believe — in many circumstances innocent defendants plead guilty.
Some people like to cling to the idea of innocent until proven guilty because it’s a nice sentiment that makes things easy — “I don’t have to make a decision about this person, I can just agree with the court outcome” — but it’s meaningless outside of the legal process. Many people do not have a clear understanding of what it takes to prove guilt in court (and also do not understand what can derail a conviction) and would be surprised to learn how difficult it can be in some situations where there is (to the layman) clear evidence.
“Innocent until proven guilty” is an example of cargo-culting in personal ethics. Or if you prefer, following a process while forgetting the principle that drove the creation of the process in the first place.
The principle is that for most people accused of a crime by the state, the state has much, much more power than the accused. To act as one check against abuse of that power, we establish a higher bar for conviction of a crime than for innocence.
But if Frank’s lunch is missing from the fridge, and he thinks Homer ate it, there is no massive power imbalance, so Frank doesn’t have the same burden of proof to decide to dislike Homer, or to accuse Homer.
Of course, if the state listens to Frank and decides to charge Homer with theft, then the state has a higher burden of proof to impose criminal consequences.
If homer is declared innocent under law because the state couldn’t prove its case, we don't go back to Frank and harass him for making a false claim. His standard for accusing Homer is lower than the state’s standard for laying charges.
After all, the state has investigators and attorney generals and grand juries and congressional panels and other apparatus for deciding whether to pursue a case in court.
We only go after Frank is he was truly reckless, not just on the basis of whether the state can meet the very high bar of proving the case in court.
People get this very badly wrong when it comes to accusations of sexual misconduct or rape from long ago. The standard for a person accusing another person is much lower than the standard for the state obtaining a conviction in court, and that is as it should be.
> The principle is that for most people accused of a crime by the state, the state has much, much more power than the accused.
It's not just state power but the combination of that with the kinds of harms that are inflicted as criminal punishment, which is why even the State does not bear the same high burden with mere civil claims.
> If homer is declared innocent under law because the state couldn’t prove its case, we don't go back to Frank and harass him for making a false claim.
In fact, Frank might still prevail against Homer in court on a civil claim for restitution for Homer having taken the sandwich.
> the point you missed is how the media is almost as powerful as the state
“The media” collectively might have such power, but the media isn't a single entity like the state, and in any case neither the media nor the entities actually comprising it inflict criminal punishment, and even the State does not bear the high burden of criminal proof when it isn't trying to inflict criminal punishment.
Given how consolidated media ownership has become, I'm not sure this is true. In addition the ability to destroy reputations is real damage that the media does all the time.
Technically meaningless outside of the legal process, but not morally. I'm fine with people assuming guilt when spitballing in a bar or something, but when it leads to mob justice, then I think it's very much something people should try to keep in mind. Sure, we no longer do actual lynchings, but innocent people's careers and relationships still get destroyed too often.
Maybe not that large of a problem on a world scale, but it does feel very unjust to me.
Sure, it’s unjust that innocent people lose everything, but... every single day innocent people lose everything because of the legal system.
“Innocent until proven guilty” may be the best we have for a legal standard but it is far from perfect and applying it anywhere outside of the legal system is a mistake regardless of how you feel about innocent people losing their careers through the court of public opinion.
Outside of the legal system “innocent until proven guilty” is a very common cause of the revictimisation of victims.
> Outside of the legal system “innocent until proven guilty” is a very common cause of the revictimisation of victims.
Could you elaborate a bit on how that works? I'm not saying you should actively vocalise that you don't believe a victim, just that you shouldn't be piling on to someone or contributing to them losing everything if you don't know whether they're guilty and are otherwise unfamiliar with the victim.
There is a big difference between "Innocent" and "not guilty", and there is a reason that courts return a "Not Guilty" verdict, and not an "innocent" one. Plenty of cases fall within a hair's width of "beyond a reasonable doubt", and I very much doubt you are going to be inviting most of the people falling in that category over to meet the family, after all they are innocent until proven guilty, and likely all around great people right?
Legal process fails plenty of times, saying that you are morally obligated to believe in its judgements is insane. The only obligations legal judgements place are upon the people being tried and the apparatus of the state, nothing else.
There is. Innocent means you did not commit the crime. Not Guilty, OTOH, means that the current presented evidence was not sufficient to determine that you did commit the crime, thus not meeting its burden of proof.
> Legal process fails plenty of times, saying that you are morally obligated to believe in its judgements
I'm not saying you should have blind faith in the legal system, but I am saying that I think it's morally better to withhold judgment until it has run its course. Additionally, if you are otherwise unrelated to a certain case, I would still be inclined to have less trust in your own judgment than in the judgment of people who spent far more time on it than you, unless you have specific reason to believe they're especially likely to have ruled incorrectly other than not trusting the process, such as conflicts of interest.
Innocent until proven guilty is a legal standard...
This is not really accurate (but see below). The notion of burden of proof shows up in debate, public discourse and logic as well as law. An alternative formulation of "innocent until proven guilty" "the one who asserts must prove". It's simply saying, we don't accept claims without proof, because the alternative is often the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance.
Every day you are constantly making assessments on people based on the information you have, whether that’s in the context of a crime or otherwise.
What you're describing here is the standard of proof, not so much the burden of proof. The plaintiff always needs to prove their case. In a criminal case, they must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil case, there must be a preponderance of evidence. In our daily life, we should have some reason we believe someone is guilty of something even if it doesn't extend as far as the standards of criminal prosecution. This is still taking on the burden of proof.
>It is unreasonable and impractical to expect individuals to abide by it in their day to day life.
It is unreasonable and impractical to expect everyone to abide by it. It is not at all unreasonable and impractical for a particular individual (e.g. me) to abide by it.
It is unreasonable and impractical to expect that if I leave my house doors open when I'm at work that no one will ever steal anything from my house. It is not unreasonable and impractical for me to abide by the moral principle of not stealing when I see a house open day after day.
So I agree with you - I don't expect all of society to abide by the principle. Yet it doesn't somehow exonerate their behavior when they violate the principle.
>Many people do not have a clear understanding of what it takes to prove guilt in court (and also do not understand what can derail a conviction) and would be surprised to learn how difficult it can be in some situations where there is (to the layman) clear evidence.
In a comment further down you point out:
>Outside of the legal system “innocent until proven guilty” is a very common cause of the revictimisation of victims.
I think that's a cop out in response to a cop out. Yes, certainly some people (in my experience, a tiny number of people) will invoke "innocent until proven guilty" to avoid any kind of burden of responsibility to the victim. In the vast majority of times I've seen it invoked, it is someone pointing out that others are jumping to conclusions, and the evidence is slight, and often that one person's claims have much heavier weight than others. A not insignificant number of these (in my opinion) involve fighting back at a bias of sort (race, gender, class, etc) where one person is being given more weight to others.
When it comes to issues where the parties involved know one another (i.e. not someone commenting about a case on the Internet), people invoke it far, far more often to counter mob mentality and perceived biases than they do to avoid making a decision.
The legal meaning is irrelevant to most people who invoke it. I rarely see people (in real life, outside of message boards) saying "Well it hasn't been proven in court, so innocent until proven guilty". They apply it to situations in front of them, involving people they know. And they are saying "Really, I don't see strong evidence for it."
Now yes, at times the victims are revictimized. No one has solved that problem. In my life I've seen it way too many times that something bad happens to someone, they need someone to blame, to the point of constructing a narrative in their head that they believe, which is why people say "I don't doubt he/she believes his/her story, but I need to determine if it is true."
(Not talking about serious issues like rape, but I see this behavior from victims very often when, say, theft is involved).
Just finished the book on this, Billion Dollar Whale, good read. Also shows how money like this affects politics with funding to Obama's re-election and his subsequent visit to Malaysia.
It's understandable that clubs pay celebs to show up, though it always blows my mind how much.
But for a person? Surely this can increase one's 'personal brand' - I guess - in some way, but really it's utterly sad. Literally paying people to hang out with you.
I don't worry much about ever being a billionaire, but that is one thing I did ponder: how hard it would be to tell the true friends from the clingers. So sad.
And $1B scam is not even a lot. Many 'national leaders' routinely take 10% of foreign direct investment right off the top. It happens in the open, clear as day, but there's hardly any reporting about it.
There are stories about someone losing a five pound note that are more interesting than this. Guy blatantly steals loads of money. Celebrity. Spends it on bullshit. Celebrity. Large number. Celebrity.
It would definitely be ironic if a movie about honesty and integrity had been funded by a scam. This is sort of the opposite, the topic of the movie and its source of funding are thematically similar, rather than being in opposition. So rather than describing it as "ironic" I'd use an antonym like "fitting" or "congruous".
The ironic part is that one might expect the producers of a film about a massive financial scam to be more educated and diligent about avoiding the same pitfalls in their own production. The fact that they were so easily gulled while essentially lecturing the world through their film, that's amusingly contrary to expectations, hence ironic.
If the movie was supposed to vilify financial scams instead of glorifying it yes it would be ironic. But Wolf of Wall Street was very glorified. Even when you think the anti-hero is finally going to get his just deserts he gets off relatively easy for supposedly committing a serious crime.
Defining irony has been a continuous argument online, but this definition seems to capture the essence of irony - "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result."
No. Irony is when the outcome of a state of affairs is opposite the expected one. The movie being about financial scams implies nothing about the making of the movie.
Now, if the Wolf of Wall Street criticized (or made fun of) financial scam funded movies, that would be ironic.
> Irony is when the outcome of a state of affairs is opposite the expected one.
Like making a movie about financial scams, which one would expect it would be just "a movie about financial scams" and not "a financial scam", but it turns out it was also "a financial scam"?
I disagree. It's more fitting than deliberately contrary. I would possibly see it if film had a point of being deliberately against the events depicted. A better of example of what I'm thinking is the story of the anti-piracy organisation illegally using music (as in without permission) in their anti-piracy ads.
Every time someone uses the word "irony" on the internet someone comes along and makes this point. I suppose like stopped clocks these commenters must be right at least occasionally. This is not one of those occasions.
I was just calling out a clickbait, didn't know that is a crime. I went back and checked the definition of "irony". This does not match any of the three:
* the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
* a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.
* a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.
Alanis has gone on tour with The Lonely Island, replacing Solange as the featured vocalist in their live performance of "Semicolon". When it gets to the part where she points out that all the lyrics are examples where colons would be used, TLI respond "Alanis Morrisette lecturing US about grammar? Isn't that a little... IRONIC?" And then they all segue into the chorus of "Ironic". Good times.
No idea why you are being downvoted. You are correct -- one of the forms of irony would, for example, entail the specific intent of making a movie in the most aboveboard manner, only to have it mired in fraud.
Minor correction: U.S. government received a $60 million settlement from Red Granite Pictures, but not any rights to any film directly[0]. Obviously a big chunk of that $60 million derived from the royalties of The Wolf of Wall Street, but the government didn't get the rights and royalties directly.
The author might have confused it with the fact that the government was _attempting_ to seize the film rights during the court proceedings[1], but the final settlement didn't include these film rights.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-scandal-redgrani...
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/feds-look-seize-wo...