Captalism: A Love Story

About a week ago or so I went to see Capitalism: A Love Story. The film is poignant. It revealed some of the root cause as to why unemployment figures continue to climb in this country. It also revealed where our tax dollars are really being spent. Everyone should see it.

This movie reveals, in an unapologetic fashion that, it is the minimum wage workers that make up the bulk of the unemployment figures in this country. Those that work in the motor vehicle plants and the assembly line workers; (not the computer programmers and business professionals,) are the people who are the backbone of the American workforce. Daily necessities and items that are cheap and convenient worldwide, is what sells the most, in terms of both immediate and residual income. Just think about how much Coke is sold in the global market. Coke is sold in vending machines, all major sporting events, almost all restaurants, all grocery stores, all concerts and fairs, and even sold in bars, for mixing drinks worldwide. The movie points out clearly, that it is the workers who put Coke and Pepsi into bottles, those who make candy bars, such as Snickers or M&M's, or those who work in auto plants; that keep our economy prospering. They play as large a part, if not larger, than say, the housing market, because the housing market is based largely on predatory lending.

In his film, Michael Moore points out that the loss of GM's last operating assembly plant, back in 1999, not only showed a leaning toward big company lay offs, but created a backlash within the economy; that has resulted in the downturn that we see today. Since the late 70's, the largest automaker has laid off over quarter of a million jobs. In a personal moment in the film, we see a closed down plant down on the edge of town, of Flint, Michigan that stands deserted where 50,000 workers lost their jobs in June of 1999, the building where Michael Moore's mom and him used to pick up his dad from work around 3:30pm, for over twenty five years.

The movie also revealed where American taxpayer dollars are really going, in the typically outlandish but highly rational Michael Moore fashion. Michael marches right up to AIG's headquarters with a fog horn in his hands announcing, "I am here to make a citizen's arrest of the board of directors of AIG." Then he proceeds to bring out some bags, and mentions to a couple of the officials outside, "We are here to get the money back for the American people, I have got some more bags, ten billion probably won't fit in here." It is scathing wit, outlandishly funny and yet oh so true. It reveals clearly that all our hard earned money is clearly going to fund Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan Chase and the rest of America's major financial firms. American people think they have a say, in where our hard earned tax dollars are going, through the vote, but, the major campaign contributors are the major companies mentioned above, so in fact, presidential candidates are pre-sorted by whether or not they will support the aims and goals of major companies, including the aforementioned. With billions going to bail outs of banks and companies and virtually none going into our pockets, (if it went into our pockets, of course, that would be socialism!) Could you truly disagree on how much it all resembles a bassackwards, (wrong spelling intended,) welfare system in action, with the recipients being the needy banks and corporations, instead of those who really need it?

The American people need to know these things, they deserve to know what is really going on and they should go and see this movie or rent it when comes out on DVD. Even if you don't agree with Michael Moore or think that his movies show only one side of the story, go see this one, because it captures the big picture of where our tax dollars are really being spent as well as giving a thought provoking look at why our economy is in the shambles it is in.