CNN Looks at Wall Street Elite Lifestyles
LEMON: Well, CNN's Special Investigations Unit takes a probing look at lifestyles of the Wall Street elite. You can call them rich. And now they may be famous after this report. It is a one-hour special that airs at 8:00 p.m. eastern. Our Abbie Boudreau with the Special Investigations Unit is here with a preview of that. Abbie, a lot of people wondering about all of these people being bailed out and their opulent lifestyles, yet those lifestyles continue even after they're bailed out.</s>ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Sure, that's exactly what this hour is about, Don. We're going to take you inside a rarely seen world of mansions and Mercedes, as we look into how that money was made on Wall Street and how it was spent. One of the persons we actually met and talked to for this special made living large his full-time job.</s>JORDAN BELLFER, WALL STREET INVESTOR: I lived like a king, and I lived to tell about it, barely.</s>BOUDREAU (voice-over): He calls himself the wolf of Wall Street. Jordan Bellfer, a self-proclaimed master of the universe, living what he calls "the life."</s>BELLFER: Wall Street's all about the money, servants at your houses. You know, parties where there's Dom Perignon flowing, helicopters landing on the helipad, pigs roasting on a spit outside with a live band playing reggae music on the beach, dancing girls, jugglers, clowns, the whole entire thing, the life.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan Bellfer, this is your life.</s>BOUDREAU: A lifestyle hard to imagine for most. This is home video taken during one of Bellfer's lavish vacations, a get-away on his 167-foot yacht.</s>BELLFER: This is where everything happens.</s>BOUDREAU: Named after his wife, Nade Dean, a former beer commercial model.</s>BELLFER: I started going hog wild. For me, it was like monopoly money. It's like anything you want you can buy.</s>BOUDREAU: He says he paid $2.5 million for an estate on long island and $5.5 million for a mansion in the Hamptons.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What a great life, huh?</s>BOUDREAU: His net worth rose to $100 million. That was in the '90s, when he was one of the kings of wall street, becoming chairman of a brokerage firm called Straten Oakmont in Long Island, making, he says, $1 million a week. He says he lived his life as if he were a character in a movie. Even in private, he played the role of his most envied character, not wanting to disappoint what he calls his invisible audience.</s>MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTOR: Greed works.</s>BOUDREAU: Identifying with Gordon Gekko from the movie "wall street."</s>BELLFER: He was just so super cool and super smooth and on top of it, and nobody's fooling the ultimate shark. In front of like every, you know, average kid from the streets dream is to be a Gordon Gekko.</s>BOUDREAU: You'll hear more, a lot more about Jordan Bellfer's incredible story tonight at 8:00 eastern, in our one-hour special "Fall of the Fat Cats." We'll also take you into the world of Wall Street executives and show you more of their lavish lifestyles. It's an interesting story.</s>LEMON: We remember Gordon Gekko, greed is good is the quote from that movie. I want to ask you about guy Jordan Bellfer. How about how did he make his money, this person you were talking about?</s>BOUDREAU: That's more of what we'll go into tonight, so it's a little bit of a tease. But at one point, he was making more than $1 million a week. This is a huge amount of money. But there is a dark side to that whole story and that's what we'll get into later tonight.</s>LEMON: All the helicopters and yachts and everything, tonight, 8:00 p.m. right here on</s>CNN. BOUDREAU: Also Jordan Bellfer will be joining us live for that -- for that hour. So we'll show the story and then people can actually ask their questions, write in their questions and ask him themselves.</s>LEMON: Very good idea. Can't wait for that. Thank you. I'll be watching right here in the "NEWSROOM" with you guys. Thank you very much, Abbie. Looking forward to it. So we're going to talk about the economy. You saw the fat cats there. The tough math for the ordinary person of feeding a family on food stamps.</s>CARRIE LEE, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The average recipient gets $101 a month. At three meals a day, that's about $1 per meal.</s>LEMON: Well, it's a reality more and more families are facing these days. We'll check in on your street when we come back in just a bit.