I think the guy is genius in what he brings to our attention with his films. He was on Larry King last night, talked about his visit there 20 yrs ago. He said the path General Motors was taking was leading to disaster. That was 20 years ago! He saw it, why didn't you? Here's a bit of what he said on that subject:
Moore: "And General Motors, that year, made a profit of $4 billion. And yet they had just laid off another 30,000 people. Now, why would you lay people off when you're making a record profit of $4 billion?
I mean that was totally insane. But they thought, well, you know, we can make a bigger profit. Maybe we can make $4.2 billion if we move those jobs to Mexico. And so they're always, you know, we can make a little bit more money if we do this. By firing those workers, Larry, they got rid of the very people who buy their cars."He talks about capitalism, says the richest 1% in this country have more wealth than the total wealth of all the other 95% combined. He says capitalism is a failure:
Moore: "Yes. Capitalism. Yes. Well, I don't have to say it. Capitalism, in the last year, has proven that it's failed. All the basic tenets of what we've talked about the free market, about free enterprise and competition just completely fell apart. As soon as they lost, essentially, our money, they came running to the federal government for a bailout -- for welfare, for socialism. And I thought the basic principle of capitalism was that it's a sink-or-swim situation. And those who do well, the cream rises to the top and, you know, those who invest their money wrongly or, you know, don't run their business the right way, then they don't do well. Watch Moore talk about corporate greed
And if you run your business the wrong way, where does it say that you or I or anybody watching this has to bail them out?
I understand why everybody seemed to get behind it, because a lot of people were afraid, because these people down on Wall Street had taken our money and made bets with it. I mean, they essentially created this invisible virtual casino with people's money -- people's pension funds, people's 401(k)s. They took this money and they made bets. And then they made bets on the bets. And then they took out insurance policies on the bets. And then they took out insurance against the insurance -- the credit default swaps."
Say what you will about Moore, but this guy knows his stuff.
King asks, "don't they want the economy to do well? Don't they want people to make money so they can buy their products. Do they want the people to be unemployed?" Moore says oddly enough, YES.
Moore: "Your employees are your biggest success. And, as you've noticed in the last few months, as the unemployment rate has gone up, so has the Dow Jones. Now, you'd think, you know, that Wall Street would respond with "Oh, my God, unemployment is going up, you know, this is bad for business." But the reality is, is that Wall Street likes that. They like it when companies fire people because immediately the bottom line is going to show a larger profit."
Damn people this guy makes more sense to me than all the jerks in Congress. Moore says the investor these days want the short-term quick profit, and they want it now. But in the long term what happens is what happened with General Motors as he described it 20 years ago.
You can read more on Moore on CNN.com
CDM wanted me to ad this link and article. I don't care what you all think, I think Moore is an all around genuine nice guy!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/michael-moore-calls-out-a_n_298605.html
Below is the first comment of 19 pages from the HuffPo Moore piece, most comments are pro Moore. Its a good article please click the link and read!
Michael Moore is a true American patriot who is fighting the good fight. He wants us to join him in the fight against the undue influence of corporate America on our democracy. He really cut to the chase with his observation about the "permalancers" at ABC. We have a whole new underclass in America of permanent temporaries who get no benefits.
posted Sep 24, 2009 at 13:51:16
