140 THE SECURITIES INDUSTRY tors into buying the stocks of companies that Belfort controlled. Their idea of after-work fun was watching a pretty blonde assistant have her head shaved in exchange for money for breast augmentation surgery. What Stratton Oakmont became is what all brokerage firms-- even the biggest, most respected firms on Wall Street--can become in the absence of strong regulation and stiff enforcement: corrupt, abu- sive, and extremely profitable. This is the natural state of things. Firms succeed in resisting the pull toward becoming Stratton Oak- monts to varying degrees, but none of them is pure. Compliance bul- warks, which are supposed to detect and stop customer abuse, are as porous as the border between the United States and Mexico. In this chapter, we begin our tour of the dark corners of the securi- ties industry. Along the way, we will correct some common miscon- ceptions about brokers and brokerage firms and look at brokers in