'Generation Zero' a Film on the Roots of the Current Economic Crisis

'Generation Zero' is a documentary film that attempts to describe the roots of the financial meltdown that occurred in September 2008 and the resulting economic crisis that persists to this day.

The premise that 'Generation Zero' offers is that the "greatest generation" that survived the Great Depression and fought World War II sought to shield its children, the so-called "baby boomers," from the rigors that it experienced. As a result they spawned a generation of people who were self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and too prone to take risks out of a mistaken belief that there is no downside.

Thus the hippies of the 1960s, who experimented with drugs and sex, became the yuppies of the 1980s and 1990s, who experimented in financial markets and politics. These speculative investors succeeded in getting the government to cover their risky investments through government guarantees and bailouts during the Clinton and Bush 43 Presidencies.

This Generation Zero, as the film suggests, have almost brought down the economic and political system of the world through its own recklessness.

'Generation Zero' has a number of talking heads who will seem very familiar to most in the conservative movement. They include Charles Krauthammer, Lou Dobbs, Larry Kudlow, Shelby Steele, Victor Davis Hanson, Amity Shales, Dick Morris, Peter Schweizer, Tobin Smith, Heather McDonald and Newt Gingrich.

'Generation Zero' has already been shown at the Tea Party convention in Nashville and after the CPAC meeting in Washington D.C. to general acclaim. The documentary is planned to be released to theaters in the middle of March.

On the one hand, tarring an entire generation for the current crisis, which 'Generation Zero' suggests is as bad as the Civil War or the Great Depression, may be a little simplistic. Likely most people born between 1946 and 1964, the rough definition of the baby boom, did not smoke dope and have uninhibited sex during the sixties, nor did they invent more creative ways to lose money in the financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s. The same generation that fought the Vietnam War and created the computer and telecommunications revolution that led to the Internet.

Still, 'Generation Zero' should serve as a sober reminder of the results of fiscal imprudence. America has, as the film suggests, suffered through self-inflicted crises before. The country has persevered and emerged stronger each time. The generation of the Civil War went on to complete the settlement of North America and the creation of a new nation. The generation of the Great Depression put down Nazism and Communism and landed men on the Moon.

The rise of the Tea Party movement, demanding a return to fiscal sanity, suggests that the current generation will prevail and go on to greater heights as well.

Source: National Tea Party Convention to Present a Special Screening: 'Generation Zero' - The Truth About the Financial Meltdown, Big Hollywood, February 5th, 2010