This picture,
truly one of the most unusual ever filmed,
contains scenes which under no circumstances
should be viewed by anyone with a heart condition
or anyone who is easily upset.
We urgently recommend
that if you are such a person or the parent
of a young or impressionable child now in attendance,
that you and the child leave the auditorium.
- ( rock music playing ) - Yeah
Louie Louiewhoa baby
I gotta go now
Louie Louiewhoa baby
I really gotta go now
The Communist world is fallin' apart
The capitalists are just breakin' hearts
Money is the reason to be
It makes me just wanna sing Louie Louie
Louie Louiewhoa baby
I gotta go now
Louie Louiewhoa baby
I really gotta go now
Some say it will, some say it won't
Now you see it, now you don't
We spent all our money on a disaster movie
It makes me wanna sing Louie Louie
Louie Louie whoa baby
I gotta go now
Louie Louie whoa baby
I really gotta go now
Oh, let's give it to 'em right now.
( trumpet playing )
Narrator:. Rome was the largest and the most beautiful city
of the ancient world.
The magnificent facade of the empire, however,
could not conceal the seeds of decay,
the unhealthy dependence of the economy on slaves,
the disparity between rich and poor.
Behind the splendor of the Forum
were vast areas of crowded slums.
Escape from the slums was difficult for there were few jobs available
and practically none for the unskilled.
To keep idle citizens entertained and out of mischief,
frequent games and spectacles were held at public expense.
At first, only chariot races were sponsored.
But by the reign of Trajan,
brutal combat to the death had become popular.
Earlier in Rome's history,
elected representatives exercised the power.
But by now, every function of government
had been absorbed by the emperor
who was above the law and ruled by decree.
That a people as civilized as the Romans,
with the most humane system of law ever devised,
could tolerate the violation of human beings
is astonishing.
This imbalance and the irresponsible behavior
of public officials would become major reasons
for Rome's eventual decline.
Michael Moore:. I wonder how future civilizations will view our society.
Will they judge us by this?
- He's a cat flushin' a toilet... - ( mews )
He's a cat flushin' a toilet, he's a cat flushin' a toilet
He'sacatflushin'atoilet
( mews )
Moore:. Or will they judge us by this?
Man #1 : Do you see the sheriff's car?
Man #2: Yeah, right there. The sheriff-- that's the first car.
- Woman: No-- - There he is.
Man #3: Three, four, five, six...
Woman: Seven.
- Man #1 : Give me the phone. - Woman: It's on this--
it's on the c-- it's on the couch.
All right, that's as close as I can get, Dad.
- Don't stand in front of the door, Dad. - ( knocking )
( whispering ) Get out from the--
Hey, Sheriff, Robert inside the house here.
- ( knocking ) - ( loud banging )
Woman: They're trying to beat the back door in, Dad.
( loud banging )
There are four of us in here. They're beating on the door.
We're not gonna resist, but you will have to come
in the house on your own.
But there are four souls in this house.
Woman: Dad, don't stand in front of the door.
- Do not. - ( doorknob rattling )
( banging continues )
Woman: Another witness.
Tell your name to the camera.
- I'm David Phillips. - Chris Collins.
AndAudraCollins
( banging continues )
- David: And this is America? - Chris: Uh-huh.
Audra: This is America, folks, what you're watching right here.
- Sheriff's office. - Robert: Yeah, we know.
- Okay, y'all have to come out, please. - Robert: All right.
Woman: We cannot act like this-- this is just something that's okay.
And sothis is new.
They've never come out and boarded up our house
after they've evicted the person
and threw their furniture in the dumpster.
So they're letting us know
that they are stepping it up,
boarding up somebody's house.
This has been my family home. This is my parents' house.
I've lived here for 41 years.
This is the only home I've ever really lived in.
This is the only-- this will always be home to me, no matter what.
- I'm a carpenter. - Woman: There you go.
Man #1 : Sandra, they're leaving. Let them leave.
- Man #2: I'm a carpenter. So what? - That's all I am.
- Well, people pay their bills. - This could happen to you.
Carpenter: That's right. So why do you think I'm doing it?
I don't have to be happy about this, but that's what I do.
Sandra: That's all I'm saying is that maybe you can make another choice.
- That's all we're saying. - That's no reason for...
Sandra: You're a working-class person.
...people here to get upset and almost get themselves hurt.
We ain't gonna get hurt.
Are you threatening us?
Y'all gonna get on out of here. You might end up even getting hurt.
Talking about us getting hurt, you might get hurt.
Man: There's gonna be some kind of a rebellion
between the people that have nothing
and the people that's got it all.
I don't understand.
There's no in-between no more.
There's the people that's got it all
and the people that have nothing.
We gotta get this stuff out of the house and packed up
and be out of here in about 30 days
even though we don't have a place to go.
Oh.
Woman: We designed this house.
The property that it's on was my family farm.
So I've lost a piece of my heritage with this.
Why do you do this to the hard-working people?
Why do you take everything?
You take everything away from them.
We're just middle-class, hard-working people
trying to make a living.
Just trying to survive.
An old Browning.
( grunts ) My pistol,
my dad's pistol, my pistol.
( sighs )
- ( knocking ) - Man: Sheriff's department.
It's supposed to be 30 days.
I got 30 days to get my stuff out.
- That's what the guy told me. - No.
What?
It's currently scheduled for today.
But...
The paper's telling us that we are due
to do an eviction here today at 9:00 AM.
Huh, shoot.
Well, he's surprised too.
The house is gone.
That cop told me that the house
has already been sold to somebody else.
So we don't own the house no more, somebody else does.
Moore: This is capitalism,
a system of taking and giving--
mostly taking.
The only thing we didn't know
was when the revolt would begin.
Man: Everything, we've tried everything...
except robbing a bank.
I'm thinking about maybe doing that.
You know, that's one way somebody could get their money back.
If they did it-- they did it to me,
I don't know why I can't do it to them.
Peter Zalewski: This is my second Hyundai Sonata.
I'll probably get a new car next year.
And when I do, it'll probably be another Sonata.
You know, I'm not a car guy.
If I can go in there and steal a condo
for the equivalent of what a Mercedes would cost
or a Bentley would cost, I'm all about that.
Moore: Meet Peter Zalewski,
Florida's up-and-coming real estate whiz.
Here we go.
Moore: He calls his real estate company Condo Vultures.
( stuttering ) We have a very good sign.
You have the final notice of eviction.
So you can see this person was basically thrown out
by the police department.
Welcome.
Moore: Peter deals exclusively
with clients who buy up foreclosed homes
and then resell them at a profit.
It's gonna be about 830 square feet or so...
At the end of the day, the only people who are buying
are primarily individuals that we represent...
Today it's on the market for $66,000.
...which are basically bottom feeders who are going in there.
They have no compassion, no sensitivity.
They're running purely off numbers They're coming in all cash,
and they're looking to slit any single seller's throat
regardless of what their situation is.
So people always ask, "What's 25c on the dollar?"
This is it. This is what you're gonna get.
The vulture basically represents a bottom feeder
that goes in there and cleans off a carcass.
Because they're dealing with so many different germs and situations,
they'll have to vomit on themselves and there's some sort
of cleansing process that occurs.
The vultures aren't actually killing,
they're the ones doing the clean-up.
Which bank you want? Bank of America?
What we do is we tap into data...
and boom, voila.
Here we got 3,400 foreclosing by Bank of America.
Gotta love it.
As we collect data, it's giving us
the insight into the battlefield,
almost like a drone that flies over the battleground in Afghanistan
or in Pakistan or in lraq.
The current asking price is 355.
Again, it was purchased for 840.
A little bit of a discount. You're gonna have two...
Our people are using that data to be able to go in
and try to steal properties, legally and ethically,
but take them at the bare-bone bottom price.
It's all about taking right now.
Look at the-- look at the roof-- completely gone and missing.
We haven't had a hurricane in five years.
( laughing )
Welcome to the housing crash, Miami style.
So this-- this is what capitalism is
and this is why the information is so critical.
We go in there, we alert them to it,
and if they like it, you know--
( imitates shotgun )
- Look at the window. - Look at that.
Looks like the house next door was on fire.
This is straight up capitalism.
- Fire damage. - I wonder if somebody was living there...
Zalewski: Everybody's got this desire to go in there
and take advantage of others' misfortunes.
Somebody asked me,
"What's the difference between you and a real vulture?"
I said, "It's very simple. I don't vomit on myself."
Our topic today: What is capitalism?
Capitalism?
Well, why should there be any question about it?
Hasn't it given us the highest standard of living in the world?
We're free to try to make a profit,
to just get by, or to fail.
That's what capitalism is:
a system of free enterprise.
Now tell us what "free enterprise" means.
Moore: I went to see my friend Wally Shawn,
a playwright and sometimes actor.
Inconceivable!
Moore: But Wally also studied history and politics
and even a little elementary economics.
Free enterprise is a form of words
that is intended to conjure up in your mind
a little town with different shops.
And the guy who runs the best shop
has the most customers.
Narrator: There is the basis of the capitalistic system:
the profit motive.
He's in business to make money.
Shawn: The original theory of capitalism
is that it's a very clever way
of society voting on what goods
it wants made.
What do you use this for?
That's-- I could use that for practically everything I ever do.
You know, society votes.
They like the way this guy
makes ice cream.
But the other guy,
they don't like his ice cream that much
and they don't buy it, so it fades out.
It's on me. That is a good fit.
Shawn: The basic law of life is that if you have things,
you can easily get more things.
Very quickly, one guy can have
five times more than anybody else.
- Free enterprise. - Competition.
Woman: The profit motive.
Moore: My dad, an assembly-line worker at General Motors,
bought and paid for our house
before I graduated from kindergarten.
We had a new car every three years.
We went to New York every other summer.
That's me on Wall Street.
And that's me directing my first movie
at the World's Fair.
We went to Catholic schools, we lived a good life.
If this was capitalism, I loved it...
and so did everyone else.
During these years a lot of people got rich
and they had to pay a top tax rate of 90%.
90%?
Yep.
But they still got to live like Bogie and Bacall.
And what did we do with all their money?
We built damns, bridges,
interstate highways, schools, hospitals.
We even sent a guy to the moon.
Things seemed to be going in the right direction.
Dad had a secure job and Mom could work
if she wanted, but didn't have to.
Middle-class families only needed one income to survive.
Our union family had free health care and free dental.
The kids could go to college without getting a loan from a bank.
Dad had four weeks paid vacation every summer.
Most people had a savings account and little debt.
And Dad's pension was set aside where no one could touch it.
It would be there for him when he retired.
We got all of this because our main industrial competition
had been reduced to rubble.
Here's what the German car industry looked like.
And here's the Japanese auto industry.
I guess you could say it's easy to be number one
when you have no competition.
Yes, of course not everything was perfect.
We didn't mind having to put up
with a little bit of this and a little bit of that...
just as long as we could be middle-class.
And we could count on our kids having it better than we had it.
It sounded like a good deal to us.
Capitalism-- no one ever had it so good.
And then, right when we were in the middle
of this big love affair with capitalism...
Announcer: The ABC Sunday Night Movie "The Gambler"
will continue in its entirety
following this live report from ABC News.
We are at a turning point in our history.
Moore: Along came Debbie Downer.
Too many of us now tend to worship
self-indulgence and consumption.
Human identity is no longer defined
by what one does,
but by what one owns.
This is not a message
of happiness or reassurance,
but it is the truth
and it is a warning.
Moore: Wow, what a bummer.
It was time to bring a new sheriff to town...
( horse whinnies )
...one who knew how to act like a president.
He knew how to handle workers who wanted a better wage.
( gunshot )
All right, mister,, I guessyouwin.
Moore: Or these annoying feminists
whining about their Equal Rights Amendment.
Well, I can change that in a hurry.
Moore: A man who knew how to get the job done.
Ronald Reagan came out of the B movies
to become the most famous corporate spokesman of the 1950s.
It's a transistor radio too. Weighs only a few ounces.
You can slip it right into your pocket.
Boraxo waterless hand cleaner really cleans up for us.
Moore: He had found his calling
and Wall Street had found their man.
You see, the banks and corporations had a simple plan:
to remake America to serve them.
But to pull it off would require
electing a spokesmodel for president.
And on November 4th, 1980, that's what we did.
...that I will faithfully execute
the office of President of the United States.
Crowd: Ronald Ronald Ronald...
Thank you.
Moore: It was an historic moment
because now corporate America and Wall Street
were in almost complete control.
See that guy standing next to the president?
You know, the one that looks like a butler?
His name was Don Regan,
the Chairman of Merrill Lynch,
the richest and biggest retail brokerage firm in the world.
He took the key position of Treasury Secretary
so he could enact the tax cuts that the rich wanted.
Regan then became White House Chief of Staff
as the president started to fade.
Then they should give the president what 43 governors have,
a line-item veto.
- And... - ( applause )
- You're gonna have to speed it up. - Oh.
Moore: Who tells the president to speed it up?
The man from Merrill Lynch, that's who.
Things in America would never be the same again.
The country would now be run like a corporation.
We're going to turn the bull loose.
( cheering, applause )
Moore: And four years later, when Reagan ran for reelection,
it was all smiley faces and happy talk.
I really feel that we're gonna be better off in the long run.
We're on the upward swing
and the factories are working much stronger than before.
We're back on top.
Moore: Actually, what Reagan presided over
was the wholesale dismantling of our industrial infrastructure.
This was not done to save money or remain competitive,
as companies back then were already posting
record earnings in the billions.
No, it was done for short-term profits...
and to destroy the unions.
Millions of people were thrown out of work
and the remaining workers were told to work twice as hard.
But wages for working people remained frozen.
The richest Americans had their top income tax rate
cut in half.
Instead of being paid a decent wage,
we were encouraged to live on borrowed money
until our household debt was nearly 100% of the GDP.
There was an explosion of personal bankruptcies.
We found it necessary to lock up millions of our citizens.
Sales of antidepressants skyrocketed
as insurance and pharmaceutical company greed
pushed the cost of healthcare up and up.
All of this was great news for the stock market
and for America's CEOs.
Moore: Half of Flint was now receiving
some form of government welfare.
During the end of the Reagan years,
I made my first movie about what had happened to the country
and specifically to my hometown of Flint, Michigan,
the birthplace of General Motors.
GM was posting profits of over $4 billion
while at the same time eliminating
tens of thousands of jobs.
I went to see GM's chief lobbyist in Flint, Mr. Tom Kay,
to ask him why this was happening.
General Motors wouldn't be doing anybody any service
if it goes bankrupt.
It has to do what it has to do
in order to stay competitive in today's economic climate.
Moore: Even if that means eliminating 18,000 jobs?
Even if it means eliminating 20,000 jobs.
- Or 30,000? - Whatever.
- How about all the jobs here in Flint? - It could feasibly happen.
Moore: And it did.
Nearly all the jobs were eliminated
and GM went bankrupt.
Perhaps more distressing was the fact that the rest of America
was now starting to resemble Flint, Michigan.
But there were some cities that still took pride in their greatness.
Cleveland
Come on down to Cleveland Town, everyone
Come and look at both of our buildings
Here's the place where there used to be industry
This train is carrying jobs out of Cleveland
See the sun almost three times a year
Thisguy has atleast two DUIs
Our economy's based on LeBron James
Buy a house for the price of a VCR
Our main export is crippling depression
We're so retarded that we think this is art
It could be worse, though, at least we're not Detroit
We,re noDetroit
Moore: No, they're not Detroit.
For 20 years I tried to warn GM and others
that this day was coming, but to no avail.
Maybe now they'd listen.
So I went down to the headquarters of General Motors
one last time to share some of my ideas.
You don't have permission. You can't film here.
Huh?
You don't have permission from General Motors.
- You can't film here. - I'm just going up to see the chairman.
No, sir. No, sir.
You know, I've been doing this for, like, 20 years.
I understand, sir.
And I have not been let into this building for 20 years,
and I think it's about time someone just let me in
and let me talk to them.
I've got some good ideas.
4-7 to 7-6 Bravo Area Alpha.
Man: Go ahead.
It's Michael Moore here to see the chairman.
Repeat that.
It's the filmmaker Mr. Michael Moore.
He's here to see the chairman.
- Gentlemen. - Yes.
You need to get prior permission. You cannot film here, okay?
But if I can't go in and get permission, what am I supposed to do?
I guess they're right. Breaking up is hard to do.
Stop that. Don't do that. Just go in the building.
Moore: For 35 years, GM made more money
than any other corporation.
But eventually, Germany and Japan
rebuilt their car industry and produced vehicles
that were safer than ours, more fuel efficient
and rarely, if ever, broke down.
In Germany, unions help hire and fire the board of directors
so the workers have a say in what's going on.
You see, the people of Japan and Germany
fight to make sure that even their conservative political leaders
don't destroy their middle class.
So where exactly are we right now?
On the day that General Motors declared Chapter 1 1 bankruptcy,
I went with my dad to visit the AC Spark Plug plant
where he had worked for over 30 years.
- So you worked actually right here. - You'd have to go--
they had a ramp that took you up over that, just beyond that...
- Just beyond that space there? - Yeah.
- And then the factory was all over there? - Yeah.
Moore: The whole complex is, like, two miles long.
I remember Mom bringing us kids in to pick you up.
- 2:30 every day. - Yeah, uh-huh.
You'd walk out of there, right over in there in fact.
And we'd be waiting in the car for you
and we'd see you come down the ramp.
We got real excited every time we saw you.
I was there 33 1/2 years.
- 33 1/2 years? - Uh-huh.
Moore: What's your best memory here, being here, working here?
My best memory? I think the people.
They were a really good bunch.
- You liked the crowd you worked with? - Yeah.
Frank Moore: A good place to work. I enjoyed it.
But I'm sorry to see it go.
Moore: Shortly before Christmas 2008,
Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago, lllinois,
abruptly fired its entire unionized workforce
of over 250 people.
They were given only three days' notice.
Bank of America would no longer provide
a line of credit to the company,
and so the workers were not paid the money owed to them.
Man #1 : My life revolves around this job.
I live according to my obligation to my job, you know?
And it's not just me, it's all of the workers here.
We go above and beyond
the call of duty for Republic.
And attheend
Republic cares nothing for us.
Man #2: We found out that they're gonna shut the plant on Tuesday.
We don't deserve what they're doing to us, you know?
It really hurts because, like I said,
this is my second family.
So it was-- it really hurts. It really hurts.
I'm gonna miss all of them, you know?
I'm gonna miss them and I don't think
anybody on this planet
deserves what they've done to us.
Moore: Scenes like this were being repeated
all over the country, and no one seemed to mind.
Zambezi, Zambezi
- Zambezi, Zam. - Woman: Whoo!
Moore: The president was enjoying his final year in office.
But as the economy started to fall apart,
he decided it was time to roll out the C word.
Capitalism is the best system ever devised.
Moore: Huh. Really?
Voices from the left and right are equating the free enterprise system
with greed and exploitation and failure.
Moore: Hmm, greed,
exploitation, failure?
Go on, I'm listening.
Capitalism offers people the freedom to choose
where they work and what they do...
Reporter: Pat Andrews has been looking for work.
Every morning she scans the classifieds in vain.
There isn't anything in here.
I'm not gonna be a gentleman's club hired dancer either.
...the opportunity to buy or sell products they want.
Reporter: Tom Rendon has avoided layoffs
at his sign company in Stockton, California,
all because this one word now makes up
for half his business.
If you seek social justice and human dignity,
the free market system is the way to go.
( applause )
Moore: And for those seeking justice in Pennsylvania,
free enterprise was definitely the way to go.
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
has one of the highest rates in the state
of young people locked up in the juvenile home.
Perhaps it's because the good people here
employ the practices of capitalism
in dealing with their wayward youth.
The county hired a private profit-making corporation
with a sweet-sounding name, PA Child Care.
It was owned and run by two businessmen,
one of whom was Robert Powell, an attorney and entrepreneur.
His good friend Judge Conahan
closed down the public juvenile home
and then got PA Child Care to build
an $8 million privately-owned facility
and charge it back to the county
for a mere $58 million lease.
Let's meet some of Wilkes-Barre's juvenile delinquents.
Magee smoked pot at a high school party.
I was very rebellious when I was at this age.
Moore: Matt, he got into an argument at the dinner table.
I threw a piece of meat, as in steak,
cooked dinner, at my mother's boyfriend.
Moore: Jamie got in a fight at a shopping mall
with her best friend.
I just figured, you know, we just weren't gonna be friends anymore.
Moore: And Hillary made a MySpace page
making fun of her assistant principal
for being strict and having no sense of humor.
And it said some pretty silly, like, 14-year-old-girl stuff.
Moore: Her assistant principal called the police.
They all appeared before kindly Judge Mark Ciavarella.
These kids were about to get their first lesson
in American capitalism:
time is money, lots of money.
I went in front of the court, in front of Mr. Ciavarella,
and I wasn't even in front of him for four minutes.
I was only in front of him for, like, two minutes.
Hillary: The first thing that Judge Ciavarella said to me was,
"What makes you think you can do this kind of crap?"
I'm sure he knew in his mind when I walked in
that he was locking this kid up no matter what.
He didn't even look at me.
Once I entered the courtroom, I didn't have any chance.
There was about six kids who went in front of me.
Every single kid who went in front of Ciavarella,
for all different reasons-- some minor, some serious--
got sent away.
Moore: Although Wilkes-Barre is located in the United States of America,
here capitalism trumped democracy.
Robert Powell, one of the owners of PA Child Care,
cut a business deal with Judge Conahan and Judge Ciavarella.
Judge Ciavarella then stepped up his conviction rates.
Many of these kids were funneled
into PA Child Care's for-profit juvenile facility.
Andfor theirtroubles,
the judges received over $2.6 million
while the owners of PA Child Care received tens of millions
of taxpayer dollars from the county.
And where did Powell go to enjoy all that money?
On his private plane
and his yacht, the "Reel Justice."
6,500 children were unjustly convicted.
It was good business while it lasted.
Reporter #1 : Two Luzerne County judges in big trouble with the law.
They're going to jail.
Reporter #2: Some kids were locked up
even when probation officers objected to detention.
In there you lose track of time and you lose track of the date.
I was barely keeping track.
It was supposed to be, like-- I believe it was, like, two months.
And it went from two months to nine months.
He said originally three to six months,
but somehow I ended up being there 11 1/2 months
and I never went back in front of the judge at all
for him to give me extensions.
Moore: Not only did PA Child Care
pay off the judges to fill their cells,
but their employees were the ones who got to decide
when a child had enough rehabilitation.
But that makes sense, because any time a governmental unit
turns over to a profit-making corporation
the duties it should be performing,
what do you expect to happen?
Matt: It makes me feel like an item that they just used
to just get money and then tossed me aside.
I'm just trying to work on my flying
and just trying to prepare for my future
so I can put this all behind me, finally be done with all this.
During the whole trial I wasn't in control at all,
but with flying it's only me.
It's just that I just get to do everything by myself.
I'm the only one on the control.
Moore: Matt loves to fly
and hopes to become a pilot someday.
If he does, he'll get his second lesson
in capitalism:
that in America, sometimes you're better off
working at Mickey D's.
- ( applause, cheering ) - Remember Sully?
Captain Sullenberger,
who safely landed an airbus in the Hudson River
- saving the lives of 150 passengers? - ( patriotic music playing )
- Man: A true American hero. - ( applause )
Moore: He met the mayor. He went to the State of the Union.
Heck, he even went to the Super Bowl.
Andthen hewenttoCongress.
Sullenberger: Flying has been my lifelong passion.
But while I love my profession,
I do not like what has happened to it.
- ( music halts ) - It is my personal experience
that my decision to remain in the profession I love
has come at a great financial cost to me and to my family.
My pay has been cut 40%.
My pension, like most airline pensions, has been terminated.
So please do not think I exaggerate when I say that I do not know
a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children
to follow in their footsteps.
Moore: Whoa, you cleared the room with that one, Sully.
I don't think the congressmen wanted to hear that stuff.
- They like you as a hero. - The current experience...
( patriotic music over dialogue )
Moore: What was your starting pay as a pilot?
I made $19,000 the first year.
I was bumped up to about 22,000 or 23,000 the second year.
Last year, gross pay
I made $17,600.
There's a joke in the airline when we get our wings pinned on us
as new-hire airline pilots that the company just kinda says,
"Hey, don't apply for food stamps in your uniform."
Moore: I don't know about you, but I want the pilot
who's got me 30,000 feet up in the air to be paid really well
and not sitting up in the cockpit digging through the pilot's seat
Iooking for loose change.
There was a period of about four months
where I was on food stamps.
- You were on food stamps? - Yes.
- And you were still flying the plane? - Yes.
With my-- with my food stamp card.
The lady I talked to in the food stamp office,
when I told her I was a pilot, she didn't bat an eye,
but she didn't-- I knew she didn't believe me.
Moore: How have you gotten by? How have you been able to afford things?
Relying on credit cards to buy the groceries at times
- when I wasn't on food stamps. - Oh, really?
I have about $10,000 in credit card debt
just on the necessities,
not on the big-screen TV and the stereo.
Moore: You're using it to buy your groceries and get by.
- Yes. - Do you have any student loan debt?
- Yes. - How much?
Mine is about 80,000.
- I took out $100,000. - Moore: Student loans?
And by the time I pay it back, at this rate,
it'll probably cost me well over a half a million with interest
and fees and penalties.
It's something that I don't-- I don't like to spend a lot of time
thinking about because it's abysmal.
It's one way that I get down really quickly
about my chosen career field
is to think about how much I owe and how little I make.
Moore: Have you had to work a second job to make ends meet?
I walk dogs on the side,
I distribute MonaVie Juice.
I have known pilots to donate plasma
for extra cash.
- You mean they give blood? - They-- well--
So they can make extra money even though they're flying an airplane?
Yeah. They donate their plasma.
So they get the blood back, but you can get paid for plasma.
- ( chuckles ) - Oh, I see.
They suck the blood out of you, take the plasma...
- Give you the blood back. -...give you the--
Oh, well then, not such a bad deal.
The only reason people stay flying is because they love it.
And managements take advantage of that.
The airlines have managed to farm out
a lot of the flying to commuters
in an effort to basically bust the unions.
You can't compete
to a lower and lower level every year
without skimping on safety somehow.
Moore: At approximately 10:15 PM on February 12, 2009,
Continental connection flight 3407
began its descent to the airport in Buffalo.
( sirens wailing )
Man: Stand by, there's some ground communication,
either state police or sheriff's department.
We need to find out if anything is on the ground.
This aircraft was five miles out, and all of a sudden
we have no response to that aircraft.
All I could tell you is there was an aircraft over the marker
and we're not talking to them now.
Moore: No one survived the crash
and 50 people lost their lives.
The media focused on the actions of the pilots.
Reporter: Captain Marvin Renslow and First Officer Shaw
were chatting about their careers.
Moore: "Careers" is a euphemism
for what the pilots were really talking about:
how little they were paid and how overworked they were.
There would be no discussion in the media
about why we have an economic system
that allows a pilot to be paid less than a manager at Taco Bell.
Reporter: First Officer Shaw
made between $16,000 and $20,000 a year
and at one point worked a second job.
Moore: Her second job had been waitressing
at a coffee shop.
How are these companies able to get away with this?
( laughs ) I guess that's the point of capitalism.
It allows you to get away with anything,
Iike making a profit off the death of an employee.
Sweetie, I can open it. Let's try it with this.
Moore: This is lrma Johnson.
Irma's husband Dan worked in middle management
at Amegy Bank in Houston, Texas.
- Wanna try to spread it? - No.
Moore: Dan recently died of cancer,
Ieaving behind lrma and their two sons.
But unbeknownst to lrma, Amegy had taken out
a secret life insurance policy on Dan's life.
The bank generously named itself as the beneficiary
in the event of Dan's death.
The insurance company then accidentally informed lrma
that Amegy Bank had received a check for $1 1/2 million
just weeks after Dan died.
Thank you for helping.
Johnson: They never told me.
I wanted to find out, well, why did they purchase a policy for him?
- Moore: You didn't know about it? - No.
And they named themselves as the beneficiary.
Yeah.
Moore: So your husband's death
made them $1.5 million richer?
Mm-hmm.
I know it's not right for them to try to profit
from my husband's death.
When I first realized what was happening,
I was in disbelief.
- It's hurtful. - I'm so sorry.
Um...
it's hurtful and I wanted answers.
Moore: lrma contacted Michael D. Myers,
a local attorney who had already been looking into
these kind of corporate insurance policies on their employees.
With the normal use of life insurance, where you're guarding against
the loss of a loved one or a breadwinner of the family,
you don't want that person to die.
With these policies, the companies that buy these
want the employees to die
in accordance with the policy projections.
You are more valuable dead to a company than alive.
American Greetings, RR Donnelly & Sons, and Proctor & Gamble
are all having problems with mortality.
These four combined programs are running at 50%
of expected mortality.
These clients are acutely aware of this problem.
Basically here the broker is complaining
that not enough employees are dying.
And therefore the investment returns are not matching the projections.
The broker writes that NCC is running
at 78% of expected mortality.
Okay, so 78% of the people we expected to die died.
But the problem with that is three of them were suicides.
And you can't count on that every year.
Moore: Can you think of any other situation
were you'd actually want people to die?
Combatants in war, I guess.
Wow, when do you want people to die?
I-I don't know.
War situations, terrorism situations.
Drug trials, perhaps. I don't know.
That's an odd question.
Moore: I didn't understand how any of this could be legal.
After all, there's a reason that there's a law
prohibiting me from taking out a fire insurance policy on your house
because I have a vested interest in your house burning down.
Since Attorney Myers had been researching this for years,
I asked him which companies were profiting
from these insurance policies.
I don't know, you don't know,
because there's no place you can go and find out
whether your company is a purchaser
- of these types of products. - Which ones do you know?
The ones that we know that have slipped out are
Bank of America, Citibank,
Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Proctor & Gamble,
McDonnell Douglas, Hershey,
Nestlé, AT&T, Southwestern Bell,
Ameritech, American Express--
- This is blue chip you're talking about. - Yeah.
These aren't fly-by-night companies trying to do a scam here
so they can collect a check if one of their employees dies.
There are probably several million Americans
who are covered by one of these policies or have been at some point.
There's a lot of it out there.
Moore: This is Paul Smith.
He used to be what is known as a loyal employee.
Smith: I worked for Wal-Mart for 18 years and I gave them 1 10%.
I mean, I loved that company.
And as it turned out, Wal-Mart took out
over 350,000 life insurance policies
on rank and file associates.
These weren't executives.
These were people like my wife, a cake decorator for 18 months.
That's the type of people they were taking insurance policies out on.
Moore: Paul's wife LaDonna left her job at the Wal-Mart bakery
so she could be a stay-at-home mom for her two kids.
Smith: She had asthma real real bad.
She went into the emergency room one night
and a nurse comes out and says, "Are you Mr. Smith?"
And I said, "Yes."
And she said, "We don't think your wife's gonna make it."
Moore: LaDonna slipped into a coma
from which she would never awaken.
Her family rushed to the hospital,
even though there was nothing they could do to help.
There was a wall here and LaDonna's in the room
on the other side of the wall.
And Jessica kept saying, "Where is she?"
And I said, "She's right on the other side of that wall."
And Jessica said, "Can we cut a hole in the wall
so that we can see her?"
Andthat juststicks with me
Do you remember that?
Smith: We had to stay in there with her, and so we'd write letters to her.
"My dear wife, I miss you more than any words can possibly say.
You are my life.
You always see beauty in the simplest things.
I've always admired you for that. I wish I could have told you that more.
I want you to come back to me soon.
I still have a lot left to learn from you, baby doll.
Your loving husband, Paul."
You okay, Wesley?
She was 26 years old.
LaDonna: You're silly. You're silly.
Myers: The younger a person is, the higher the benefit is
because they're expected to live longer.
Women are also expected to live longer than men.
So the most valuable employee to the company
if they're dead, is a young woman.
Moore: LaDonna's death earned
one of the richest corporations in the world
an extra $81,000.
I was faced with over $100,000 worth of medical bills
and a $6,000 funeral
and Wal-Mart didn't offer a penny to help with that.
I did trust them.
And never in a million years would I have ever thought
that somewhere on a profit statement,
"Dead associate, $81,000."
Wal-Mart doesn't care about you.
When someone passes away,
they shouldn't get something out of it.
Myers: The common denominator to each form of coverage
is that when the employee dies,
the employer gets paid the insurance benefits.
They're often referred to as "dead peasant insurance."
Moore: Dead peasants? Why'd they use such a creepy name?
Myers: It's very creepy. I don't know what it means either.
Dead is clear.
That's the worker who's passed away, so they're dead.
Peasant, I don't know why they chose that word.
I don't know if it has some historical significance
or that's just the way they view the relative value
of the employees' lives.
Dead peasants?
Yeah, amongst themselves that's what they call it.
It's insulting to refer to my husband like that.
( sniffles )
Moore: It turned out that Amegy Bank
had a second dead peasant policy on Dan,
bringing their total take to nearly $5 million.
- Is capitalism a sin? - Father Dick Preston: Yes.
Capitalism for me and for many of us
at this present moment is an evil.
It's contrary to all that's good. It's contrary to the common good.
It's contrary to compassion.
It's contrary to all of the major religions.
Capitalism is precisely what the holy books,
our holy books in particular, remind us is unjust
and in some form and fashion,
God will come down and eradicate somehow.
Moore: This was Father Dick Preston,
the priest from Flint who married my wife and me.
Preston: Capitalism is wrong,
and therefore has to be eliminated.
Moore: Eliminated?
That might be a little harsh,
so I decided to go and talk to the priest
that married my sister and brother-in-law.
I'm sure he would have a more balanced approach
when it came to capitalism.
It is immoral, it is obscene, it is outrageous.
You know...
it is really radical evil.
It's radically evil.
Moore: Wow, does their boss know that they're talking like this?
I thought it best to go and check this out with the bishop.
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton: The system doesn't seem to be
providing for the well being of all the people.
Andthat's what makes it
almost in its very nature
something contrary to Jesus who said,
"Blessed are the poor, woe to the rich."
That's right out of St. Luke's gospel.
Moore: How have we put up with this system for so long?
I mean, it's-- they talk about--
The system has built into it what we call propaganda.
I'm in awe of propaganda--
the ability to convince people
who are victimized by this very system
to support the system and see it as good.
We know that American capitalism is morally right
because its chief elements--
private ownership, the profit motive
and the competitive market-- are wholesome and good.
They are compatible with God's laws and the teachings of the Bible.
Moore: For as long as I can remember,
I've been told that competition and profit are good things.
( distorted ) They are compatible with God's laws
and the teachings of the Bible.
Moore: And if increasing profits means locking up a few kids
or cashing in on the death of an employee...
( distorted ) Compatible with God's laws and the teachings of the Bible.
Moore:...it is morally right to provide for the stockholders.
( distorted ) They are compatible with God's laws
and the teachings of the Bible.
Moore: Debt, eviction and exploitation.
( distorted ) God's laws and the teachings of the Bible.
Moore: What were we really pledging our allegiance to?
( distorted ) The profit motive.
Moore: And so all good Americans came to act as if they believed
our capitalist economic system was compatible
with the teachings of the Bible.
( organ music playing )
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a priest.
It wasn't because of the fancy getups
or the Knights of Columbus escorts,
or even the groovy nuns who were so good to me.
It was because of the priests who went on the march from Selma,
or tried to stop the war,
or devoted their lives to the poor.
They told me quite clearly what Jesus said,
that the first shall be last and the last shall be first:,
That the rich man will have a very hard time
getting into heaven;
That we will be judged by how we treat the least among us;
And that there are no people more important to God
than the poor.
Since that time, it seems that Jesus got hijacked
by a lot of people who believe that the son of God
was sent here to create heaven on earth for the well-to-do.
I must have missed that part of the Bible
where Jesus became a capitalist.
Man: Please tell me, master,
what must I do to have eternal life?
Go forth and maximize profits.
You say the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,
but when exactly will it come?
When you deregulate the banking industry.
- ( voices overlapping ) - Help me.
I've been this way for 20 years.
I'm sorry, I cannot heal your pre-existing condition.
He'll have to pay out of pocket.
Moore: Somehow, I don't think Jesus came to earth
so he could ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
And yet, from the very beginning,
the rich have claimed him for their own.
When I'm on Wall Street and I realize
that that's the very nerve center of American capitalism,
and I realize what capitalism has done
for working people in America, to me that's a holy place.
Let me add to it.
Over the whole duration of the lraq war and the terror war,
you look at the world's stock markets and you look at the world economy,
and despite these horrible pockets of unrest and killing and murdering
that we've been describing, it's never been better.
The global economy has never been better
and the global stock markets have never been better, Jimmy.
It is either a God-given miracle
or it has something to do with the victories
of the spreading world of capitalism or both.
Moore: They think Wall Street's a holy place.
What do you think Jesus would think of capitalism?
I think he would simply refuse to--
to be part of it.
Moore: Jesus would refuse to be part of it,
but he probably had a special place up there
for whoever leaked a secret Citibank memo
about their plan to rule the world.
Back in 2005 and 2006,
Citigroup wrote three confidential memos
to their wealthiest investors about how things were going.
They reached the conclusion that the United States
was no longer really a democracy,
but had become a plutonomy--
a society controlled exclusively by and for the benefit
of the top 1% of the population
who now had more financial wealth
than the bottom 95% combined.
The memo gloated about the growing gap between rich and poor
and how they were now the new aristocracy
and that there was no end in sight for the gravy train they were on.
There was, though, one problem.
According toCitigroup,
the most potent and short-term threat
would be societies demanding
a more equitable share of the wealth.
In other words, the peasants might revolt.
Citigroup lamented that the non-rich
might not have much economic power,
but they do have equal voting power with the rich.
One person, one vote.
And that's what really scares them--
that we can still vote.
In fact, we have 99% of the votes
and they only have 1%.
So why do the 99% put up with this?
According to Citigroup, it's because the majority of the electorate
believe that someday they will have a chance
of becoming well-to-do themselves
if they just keep trying hard enough.
The wealthy were pleased that so many people
had bought in to the American Dream
while they, the rich, had no intention
of ever sharing it with anyone.
I think capitalism is a lot more important than democracy.
I'm not even a big believer in democracy.
I always say that democracy is-- can be two wolves and a sheep
deciding on what to have for dinner.
Moore: This is Stephen Moore-- no relation--
a columnist and an editorial board member
of "The Wall Street Journal,"
the daily bible of corporate America.
Look, I'm in favor of people having the right to vote
and things like that, but you know there are a lot of countries
that have the right to vote that are still poor.
Democracy doesn't always lead to a good economy
or even a good political system.
With capitalism, you are free to do what you want,
to make whatever you want out of yourself.
It doesn't mean you're gonna succeed.
Remember, the US Constitution does not guarantee happiness.
Moore: Ah, the Constitution.
All my life I've heard that America is a capitalist country.
So I went to see the original Constitution and check out if it was true.
I'm trying to see where it sets up our economic system,
Iike where it says we have a capitalist economy.
Guard: The jurisdiction.
- Judicial part of the-- - Down there?
Moore: There was no mention of free market or free enterprise
or capitalism anywhere.
In fact, all I saw was "We the people,"
something about "a more perfect union,"
and "promoting the general welfare."
Welfare, union, we?
That sounded like that other -ism.
But no, that's democracy.
And I began to wonder, "What would it be like
if the workplace was a democracy?"
There's always been a big separation between how the country is run
and how businesses are supposed to run.
Moore: It's true.
There seems to be a disconnect
between our professed love of democracy
and how we're so willing to accept a dictatorship
every day we show up to work.
It's not that way at lsthmus Engineering in Wisconsin.
They design and build robotic machines for industry.
It's a $15 million-a-year business.
Man: All of the workers
are the owners of the business.
Moore: He's not talking about some bullshit stock option.
He means they're the true owners.
Man: And it's a democratically-run operation where every member
has one vote and an equal say.
- All in favor? - All in favor?
Man: It takes the money out of the equation.
Moore: By taking the money out of the equation
so that they can call the shots,
they end up making more money.
Cool, huh?
And how patriotic that they want to extend
their love of American democracy to their job.
Just imagine if the place where you worked
was run by you and your fellow workers.
You probably wouldn't lay off your coworkers
to increase the value of your stock, would you?
Or give yourself a pay raise
while making your coworkers take a pay cut.
Man: We don't really do that here.
You really can't because everyone else would be looking at you
saying, "Why is this guy so fricking greedy?"
You know, it would be too obvious.
The bottom line is you've got plenty of people
who roll up their sleeves every day and go to work.
But if there's someone way up there on the chain
that collects all the extra money, that's not fair.
Moore: Huh, fairness in the workplace--
what a novel idea.
Out in California, there's a bread factory
where workers make thousands of loaves of bread every day
Man: The more hours you work towards
the benefit of the co-op,
the more you share in the profits.
Man #2: The workers are happy here.
No big ls, little yous. Everyone's the same.
Me as the CEO, I get the same share
that anybody else does.
And that has proven
to be very lucrative for us as workers.
Moore: Assembly-line workers here earn over $65,000 a year,
more than three times the pay
for a starting pilot at American Eagle.
Man: I'm just hoping that people take notice
of this type of organizational activity
and start considering it as an alternative.
Why do you want to get rich?
How many cars do you really need in life?
Moore: Clearly, he's not a car guy, but that's okay.
His bread factory and hundreds of other worker-owned businesses
are proof that people aren't always motivated by profit.
( fanfare )
Announcer: An historic victory over a dread disease.
Moore: lnstead of using his genius to make a ton of money,
Dr. Jonas Salk spent all of his time
putting monkey kidneys in a blender
trying to find a cure for polio.
And when he did, he decided to give it away for free.
This man could have been rich many times over
had he sold his vaccine to a pharmaceutical company.
But he thought his talents should be used
for the greater good.
And the decent salary he made as a doctor
and a research professor was enough for him to live
a comfortable life.
Who owns the patent on this vaccine?
Well, the people, I would say.
There is no patent. Would you patent the sun?
Moore: Yes, we've come a long way since the days of Dr. Salk.
Because today our best minds are used for something else.
Where do we send our top math and science people?
Into finance.
They don't go into science in America.
They go to Wall Street.
Moore: Today's students, unlike in Dr. Salk's time,
can graduate from college with a student loan debt
of up to $100,000 or more.
These students are then beholden to the banks
for the next 20 years.
And the best way for them to pay off these banks
is to go to work for them
instead of working for the common good.
Black: We've taken people that could be enormously productive--
just what we're short of in America--
and we take them and we put them in an activity
that isn't simply less productive,
but where they're actually destructive;
where actually every day they work, they make the world worse.
Moore: So what exactly were the top students from Harvard
and other schools working on these days?
Derivatives... derivatives... derivatives... derivatives...
Credit default swaps.
I can't make any sense out of this.
I might as well quit.
Moore: That's exactly how I felt
when I started hearing these new terms.
So I went down to the New York Stock Exchange to get some answers.
Sir, can you explain derivatives to me?
Can anybody explain derivatives or credit default swaps?
Can someone explain to me what these are?
Sir, can you tell me what a credit default swap is?
Can you explain a derivative to me?
Can you tell me what a derivative is?
- Nobody'll talk to me. - I'm just a blue-collar guy.
I can see that. Hey.
- I'm looking for some advice. - Yeah, good.
You guys got any advice for me here?
A derivative? Credit default swap?
( sighs )
Moore: I did find one guy on Wall Street
who wasn't a film critic.
Marcus Haupt is an lvy League educated engineer
who was a vice president of Lehman Brothers
and spent 15 years on Wall Street
creating what they call complex financial instruments.
What is a derivative?
A derivative is a secondary bet
on an underlying product.
So you may have a stock and you have an option on that stock.
And that option on that stock allows you the privilege
but not the obligation to buy or sell.
How should we put this? You are allowed to make a decision
of whether or not you want to ultimately take that exposure.
Let me explain it another way. The derivative's price
is based on the price of something else.
It's kind of like a second-degree equation.
If you think of, let's say...
um, maybe I should go back.
Let me start this over again. Let's go back here.
Moore: I was lost.
Maybe there's someone at Harvard University
who could explain it to me.
Yeah, the-- the-- the--
the-- the-- the-- the buyer--
so the seller holds the loan and it might default.
And they sell off--
somebody-- somebody else--
Sorry, let me just back up.
I apologize. These are pretty exotic.
Moore: Derivatives are nothing more
than complicated betting schemes.
Here's what the math equation of one looks like.
Can't figure it out?
That's okay. You're not supposed to.
They've made them purposely confusing
so they can get away with murder.
Let's say you're a lawyer and you're coming in
and you're from the government and you're trying to evaluate
if these things violate the tax code or not.
If you can figure out what they're doing,
most likely that Wall Street firm will offer you a job.
Could I go to Wall Street and just ask them
to set up a derivative on anything?
Yes.
Believe me, if it's out there
there's a derivative on it.
Moore: So this is what Wall Street has come to--
an insane casino.
We've allowed them to bet on anything,
including our family home.
Reporter #1 :...the most powerful central banker of the 20th century.
Reporter #2: Greenspan has become an economic icon.
Reporter #3: Alan Greenspan says the economy is hunky-dory.
Reporter #4: Greenspan gone wild. It's like "Girls Gone Wild."
What do Mick Jagger and Alan Greenspan have in common?
Alan Greenspan, who at that moment in time
was surely thought to be the smartest man
who had walked the face of the earth,
he starts using a phrase, "tap your home equity,"
--that Americans can tap their home equity,
which is just Alan Greenspan-speak
for "borrow against your home."
And if you can't repay it you'll lose your house.
It actually started by talking mostly older Americans,
people who already had homes,
into refinancing their homes
to get them out of houses.
Moore: Yes, get senior citizens out of their houses.
The scam to swindle people out of the homes
they already owned was masterful.
Here's how it worked.
First, tell these homeowners that they own a bank.
And that bank is your home.
So if your home is worth $250,000,
that makes you a quarter millionaire.
You're sitting on a goldmine.
You own your own bank.
The bank of you.
And you can use your bank to get more money.
Just refinance.
Everyone's doing it.
Of course hidden in the dozens or hundreds of pages of fine print
are tricky clauses that allow the bank to raise your interest rate
to a number you didn't know about,
perhaps so high that you won't be able to repay your loan.
But that's okay.
If you can't pay it we'll just take your house.
Of course, before they could take your house
they needed to change the regulations and the rules.
Moore: What's this photo I found here?
It was in an annual report of the FDlC.
John Gilleran, the head of the Office of Thrift Supervision,
which is supposed to regulate savings and loans,
he's the guy with the chainsaw.
And the four other grinning idiots
in the photo are the three leading lobbyists in banking
and the deputy director of the Federal Deposit lnsurance Corporation.
And they're poised over a pile of regulations.
And this is supposed to demonstrate
their intention to destroy regulation.
And they succeeded.
And now we know what happens
when you destroy financial regulation.
You produce a financial catastrophe.
A growing family with a lot of debt;
A young couple with no down payment;
A business owner whose income was hard to document;
Every one of them was turned down for a home loan
by three different lenders.
I'm with Countrywide and I got them all approved.
Moore: Don't be fooled by the pleasant demeanor
and blonde hair.
It's the same pitch the mafia gives you
in the neighborhood.
( imitating Brando ) I know how you feel.
You got a lot of debt.
You don't have any money for the down payment.
You can't find your documents.
It's okay. I'll make you a loan you can't refuse.
It's called subprime.
You pay no interest now.
You pay a little more later.
Don't worry about later. We'll take care of you.
And like the mafia, Countrywide,
Citibank, Wells Fargo, Chase...
Let's go.
...they would someday stop by to collect
and take your home.
Randy Hacker: I was paying 1,700 a month and making it.
Then it went to 2,000. Then it went to 2,300.
Then it went to 2,700.
Can't do it.
Moore: These are the Hackers of Peoria, lllinois.
Randy is a railroad worker
and Donna works for retirement homes.
Their farm, which had been in the family for over four decades,
had been foreclosed on by Citibank.
Randy had had an accident on the job years ago
and was now on disability.
They absolutely just plain fucking stole everything,
my whole life's savings and everything,
by a stroke of a pen and a lawyer and a judge.
Moore: The Hackers showed me the foreclosure notice from Citibank.
What caught my eye
was the town from which their mortgage came.
It turns out that a company owned by the big banks
has chosen to run 60 million mortgages through,
of all places, one of the most desperate towns
in the United States.
This company hires the people of Flint
to send out nearly 60%
of all the foreclosure notices in the country.
In what seems to be some sort of cruel joke,
my hometown was now in the service
of helping to turn the rest of America
into Flint.
Typically when a bank forces a family like the Hackers
out of their home they hire professionals
to come and clean up the place.
In this case, the bank figured,
why pay top dollar when we've got a desperate family
who will work cheap?
In a final humiliation
the Hackers went to work for the bank
that took their home.
Donna: "Property is to be turned over in broom-clean condition
with all trash, debris and personal property removed.
Upon delivery of the keys
the PAS representative will hand you a check for $1,000."
Randy: You know, 1,000 bucks
to get out of my own house and stuff,
I really want to thank them. That was really something.
My wife worked for a week to clean the house up
and make sure it was presentable to somebody else.
I'm glad they did that. I have to thank them.
It was awful nice of them.
Yeah, I'd like to thank them all right.
I have one more.
Oh, that goes to our bedroom door.
Trying to think what--
that goes that that. I had a lock on it
to keep kids out 'cause I have guns.
And here's your money, Randy.
Moore: What you're witnessing
is a robbery.
I'm starting to understand why people,
they lose their minds and start shooting people.
I'm not gonna say I would do something like that,
but I can see how they get people
into that situation where
people go in there with bombs and blow them up
and shoot at them.
Anything that happens to them people, they deserve it,
is all I can say.
I hope something happens--
yeah, well.
Can't say no more.
Some roadkill right there.
Moore: This is Bob Feinberg.
He handled all the VlP loans for Countrywide,
the nation's largest mortgage company.
Although Countrywide mainly specializes
in outrageously high interest loans for low income people,
Bob's job was to take care of
some of the country's top political leaders.
Bob: One day one of the bigger bosses called me in the office.
He said, "l want you to call this guy."
I said okay.
And he said, "He's a friend of Angelo's."
Angelo Mozilo's the CEO of Countrywide.
"Give him this rate. Waive these fees.
And get it locked in. And don't fuck it up."
And I was like, "Oh, okay."
So it was a special department
that handled friends of Angelo.
Discounts were being given.
Fees were being waived.
And at times paperwork was being waived.
We literally would write on the file "FOA."
These were really important people.
I had Richard Holbrooke-- Ambassador Holbrooke,
Donna Shalala,
people on Capitol Hill, people that regulate the mortgage markets,
people that regulate Wall Street,
and Jim Johnson, head of Fannie Mae,
Alphonso Jackson the secretary of HUD...
Senator Conrad from the Finance Committee.
I had the TV on in my house. I was in the kitchen
and I heard a voice pontificating
about predatory lending and how we have to put an end to it.
Our nation's financial regulators
are supposed to be the cops on the beat
protecting working Americans
from unscrupulous financial actions.
Bob: Senator Dodd-- Christopher Dodd-- was speaking.
And I just stared at the television and I was upset.
Some of these loans have legitimate uses,
when made to sophisticated borrowers
with higher incomes.
I had done a number of loans for him
in which he got discounts and all the things
that go with being a friend of Angelo's
and all the good stuff.
Moore: The Senate Banking and Housing Committee
is supposed to be the watchdog of the mortgage industry.
Senator Dodd is the chairman of this committee
and has served on it for over 28 years.
As afriend of Angelo
he received over $1 million worth
of discounted loans from Countrywide.
Someone next door here is selling a toxic
piece of crap loan to somebody.
I was required to give the most suitable loan to that VlP.
Moore: Did you ever feel that
what you were doing might be bribery?
Bob: I didn't feel like I was bribing anybody, no.
I was just doing my job. I was the VlP guy.
Everyone in the company knew who I was.
You know, everyone.
So it was kind of a flattering situation.
But no, I don't feel like I did anything wrong at all.
And if I didn't do it, somebody else would have been doing it.
Moore: That's why we need people like Bill Black,
one of the bank regulators who uncovered
the Savings & Loan scandal in the 1980s.
Something improper happened
and I bet you the regulators know.
Moore: One of the leading figures of that scandal, Charles Keating,
had an idea on what to do with Bill Black
and sent a memo out with these instructions.
I asked him who was looking out for us today.
Where was the FBl in all of this?
The FBl began publicly warning
in September 2004
that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud
perpetrated by the banks.
Epidemic was their word.
But when 9/11 hit,
the Bush administration transferred
at least 500 white-collar FBl specialists
out of dealing with white-collar crime,
even though we were entering
during the entire Bush administration
the greatest wave of white-collar crime
in the nation's history, in fact, in the world's history.
The FBl says that 80%
of the mortgage fraud losses
are induced by lender personnel.
Meaning what?
Meaning not the borrower
coming off the street trying to defraud the savings and loan.
These are frauds led by whoever controls the organization.
- Right. - It's typically the CEO in other words.
So did these CEOs think they were gonna get away with it?
They have gotten away with it.
Moore: Yes, apparently they did.
And with the presidential election just around the corner...
- Define rich. - 5 million.
...the elites were worried that their crime spree might come to an end.
After bilking trillions from the American public
by repossessing their homes,
bankrupting them when they got sick
and convincing them to invest their earnings
and pensions in the casino known as the stock market,
the rich decided to make one last heist
and as their 30-year long party came to an end,
take as much of the silverware with them as they could.
But first they needed a distraction.
And as they learned after 9/11,
nothing works better in the home of the brave
than some good old fashioned fear.
And who better to wheel out for one last scary performance
than Chicken Little himself?
Oscar voters, for your consideration.
Good evening.
This is an extraordinary period for America's economy.
The government's top economic experts
warn that without immediate action by Congress,
America could slip into a financial panic
and a distressing scenario would unfold.
More banks could fail, including some in your community.
- ( thunder rumbling ) - The stock market would drop even more,
which would reduce the value of your retirement account.
The value of your home could plummet.
Foreclosures would rise dramatically.
And if you own a business or a farm,
you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit.
More businesses would close their doors
and millions of Americans could lose their jobs.
- ( screams ) - Even if you have good credit history,
it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need
to buy a car or send your children to college.
And ultimately our country could experience
- a long and painful recession. - ( people screaming )
Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen.
Moore: In reality there was no need for this speech,
because the mainstream media
had already drunk the Kool-Aid.
Meltdown. The American financial system
is rocked to its foundation.
The giant bank crumbles, stocks plummet.
- Nightmare on Wall Street. - AlG fights for its life.
- Blood on the floor. - Armageddon.
A category-five test of our financial levies.
What the fuck happened?
Have you ever seen a dam fail?
It starts with a little crack, a little seepage.
Reporter: With overwhelming support,
Congress struck down the restrictions.
Big banking is barreling back.
Black: And it starts eroding
and it destroys all the internal strength of the dam.
Reporter: Poison from the housing mess
seeped deeper and deeper into the banking system.
Black: And soon the dam works against itself.
The weight of the dam and the weight of the water
conspire against it.
Reporter: lnvestors were dumping Bear shares
Ieading a huge selloff...
Reporter #2: The stocks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
were in freefall this morning...
Black: Then there's kind of a significant flow.
Reporter: Wall Street's losing streak stretched into its seventh day.
Black: And then suddenly you've got 60-70 foot sections.
A dam exploding.
Reporter: Lehman Brothers, bankrupt.
Merrill Lynch, sold in haste.
- Now AlG. - Black: Just crashing.
Reporter: The market's year long slide
has brought down some of the biggest blue chips.
Black: The water starts rushing through.
Reporter: This morning, Washington Mutual has gone under,
the largest failure in US banking history.
Reporter #2: Stocks fell off a cliff.
The largest single point drop in history.
Black: It destroys the rest of the dam.
Andthe whole failure
Iooks like it only takes two minutes.
But of course, it's that little hole
that's been there for several years
that really destroyed it.
You have this fundamentally unsound system
built on a foundation of sand
instead of bedrock.
And it was rotted from the core.
It seems like capitalism is just collapsing on itself.
Who got rich here?
Lots of people got rich during this time,
primarily the officers and directors
of the large banks and savings and loans
and the specialty non-prime lenders.
These people became unbelievably rich.
And members of Congress got rich,
especially once they left Congress.
A number of them go and work in the financial institutions.
Sure, and as do Rubin and Summers.
Moore: Robert Rubin, a one-time top executive
at both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs
champion a change in the law
that allowed commercial banks to get into new areas
Iike investment banking and exotic insurance products.
This made it legal to let Citicorp
merge with Travelers Group,
a deal valued at $70 billion,
creating the world's largest bank.
After leaving the Clinton administration,
Rubin worked for Citigroup,
earning more than $115 million.
Summers made his money where?
Summers made his money as a supposed consultant
and in giving speeches
at apparently, in some cases,
over $100,000 a pop.
Moore: Summers also made $5.2 million at his part-time job,
advising a hedge fund.
Where did Geithner work?
Geithner has been a failure
at pretty much everything he's done in life.
Most of the institutions that destroyed the economy
were under his direct regulatory authority.
How did he get the job as Treasury Secretary?
By completely screwing up his job
as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
That makes no sense.
Of course, it makes perfect sense.
This is not new to Washington.
People who will give you the wrong answer
but the answer you want are invaluable.
And they often get promoted
precisely because they're willing to say
and do absurd things.
These are the people that promised us
that financial deregulation would make all of us rich.
And these are the people who were personally made rich.
Moore: It was not surprising that the rich wanted to get richer.
But now they had come up with a new and brazen way to do it.
Just back a big truck up to the Department of Treasury
and take $700 billion of our tax money,
no questions asked.
I got Michael Moore here. You know who Michael Moore is, don't you?
The film director. He's filming me right now.
- I got my wife on the line. - Oh, hi.
How are you doing? Baron Hill from lndiana.
How are you, sir? Good state.
- We're from Michigan you know? - Yeah.
How did this collapse happen?
I got home on a Friday, everything was just fine in terms of the economy.
I call back after my plane landed in lndiana
just to check in with my office,
and all of a sudden we've got this crisis on our hands
and that I'm gonna have to vote when I come back Monday
for a multibillion-dollar bailout of the financial industry.
The word that we got was that if we did not act immediately
the economy would collapse, no doubt about it.
I felt that the announcement
of this crisis in September,
just a few weeks before election,
was very suspicious.
This is when Congress is the most nervous.
And I thought, "Wait a minute. What's going on here?
This is not normal."
Moore: The leadership of Congress
and the Bush administration
quickly held a series of private meetings
with the titans of Wall Street to figure out
just how much money was needed to cover
all the bad bets investors had made.
A deal was cut with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson,
the former CEO of Goldman Sachs,
whose net worth was estimated at $700 million
when he left Goldman to go and run the Treasury Department.
I think we saw the best of the United States of America
in the Speaker's office tonight.
Moore: The best of America?
Or did he mean the best of Goldman Sachs?
The Treasury Department,
it's basically an arm of Wall Street.
All the people in charge were from Goldman Sachs.
We call it Government Goldman in the modern era.
Moore: That's because there were now numerous
former Goldman executives inside the Bush Treasury Department,
as there were under Clinton.
They worked as powerful lobbyists from the inside
to abolish financial regulations
while we paid their salaries.
Black: Treasury Secretary Paulson--
he wasn't just randomly at Goldman.
He was the guy at Goldman who got them big time
into buying these exotic housing derivatives.
So he got Goldman in a huge amount of trouble.
Moore: lnsane housing derivatives
had now destroyed much of Goldman's competition.
And with the Goldman boys now calling the shots
inside the government, they would ensure that Goldman
would end up as the kings of Wall Street
when the dust settled.
Black: So the last possible people
that should be giving advice to Treasury would be Goldman.
So naturally Paulson,
former CEO of Goldman, puts them on.
And what advice do they end up giving?
Well, to use the taxpayers
to bail out Goldman
and other favored financial institutions.
Well, Secretary Paulson has submitted
a simple proposal to Congress.
This is it-- three pages.
It's about $1 billion a word.
And it is quite simple.
Secretary Paulson gets the key to the treasury.
He's gonna start off by borrowing $700 billion
in the name of the American people,
maybe more later. And it waives all laws.
All laws!
Not even court review. Pretty simple proposal.
We are in a real crisis situation
that could mushroom
into something worse than the Great Depression.
So I saw fear. One gentleman started to cry.
People are telling us that it's going to be this gigantic calamity.
And I'm up for election in two months.
Eight weeks away from election,
I don't want to make a mistake. What's the right thing to do?
Heaven help us.
If we fail to pass this
I fear the worst is yet to come.
And a few members were even told
that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.
They were ramming this thing down our throat.
They wanted us to vote on it right away
without any kind of thoughtful analysis.
- No real hearings? - No real hearings.
And I wasn't aboutto--
I got cornered into voting
for the lraq resolution based upon some lies
that they made to me and I wasn't going to go through that again.
I will not wait on events while danger is gathering.
I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer.
Use fear and then you get done what you want.
And they created in this window--
two months before election-- this pressure cooker.
People understand that the House of Representatives
needs to pass this piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, my message to the American people...
don't let Congress seal this Wall Street deal.
These criminals have so much political power
they can shut down the normal legislative process
of the highest lawmaking body in this land.
All the committees that should be scanning
every word of what is being negotiated are benched.
And that means the American people are benched too.
We are constitutionally sworn
to protect and defend this republic
against all enemies foreign and domestic.
They say it's gonna be Y2K all over again.
This is the same politics of fear we are hearing
from the fat-cat financial bullies from Wall Street.
Why aren't we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess?
Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy?
Why aren't we reducing debts from Main Street instead of Wall Street?
Is this the United States Congress
or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?
Moore: The night before the vote
the American people in unprecedented numbers
flooded Capitol Hill with millions of messages
demanding that Congress vote no.
The bailout package was defeated today,
voted down in the House of Representatives.
The stock market plunged--
plunged to the single greatest point loss
in the Dow average in one day ever.
The question is this:
is the failure of the bailout reason enough
to vote all the incumbents out of office in five weeks?
12 votes killed it.
So did the voices of a lot of the American people
who called their representatives and said no.
Then Congress voted no.
Tonight Congress has left town.
Moore: It was a rebuke that Congress and Wall Street
had rarely, if ever, experienced.
It was what the Citibank memo had warned against:
That if the peasants ever chose
to exercise their democratic rights,
the pillaging by the wealthy would be over.
So Paulson and company headed back up to Capitol Hill.
And faster than you can say "Check, please,"
they cut a backroom deal with the help of the Democrats.
This issue supersedes an election.
We need to get this right. We need to do it quickly.
I agree with the secretary.
It's not gonna openly cost all these hundreds of billions.
We will recover most of it, maybe all of it.
Kaptur: The Democrats became
the delivery man for a bill
for the Republican president.
The presidents and presidents- to-be made phone calls
and members-- I know at least two members
who have an interest in the US Senate,
and promises were made.
Moore: Within days, the Congress
did an amazing about-face
and gave the banks the 700-plus billion they wanted,
the people be damned.
On this vote the yeas are 263,
the nays are 171. The motion is adopted.
It was very carefully planned to happen when it did,
to involve the players that it did.
The message was carefully handled.
They had Congress right where they wanted them.
You don't think it was just happenstance?
No.
This was almost like an intelligence operation
that had to be coordinated at the highest levels.
This whole fiasco shows you
that there are some forces--
That are not democratic.
Right. That are in control.
Big time.
They did a masterful job. Very well executed.
Do you think it's too harsh
to call what has happened here a coup d'état?
A financial coup d'état?
No, because I think that's what's happened.
- A financial coup d'état? - Yeah.
I could agree with that.
I could agree with that because the people here
really aren't in charge.
Wall Street is in charge.
Where's our money?
I don't know.
Reporter: Citigroup is spending $50 million
on a luxury corporate jet.
You don't know? But you're the person--
you're in charge of-- they put you in charge to find out.
Reporter: Goldman Sachs has set aside
6.8 billion for bonuses.
But Treasury followed a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.
They didn't ask the banks
what they were going to do with the money.
And not having asked them, the banks are not required to tell.
AlG poolside meetings at a Valley resort...
Doesn't make any sense.
We're getting word that 73 people
received at least $1 million apiece.
Why would the Department of Treasury
not require the banks to tell them
what they're doing with our money?
You're going to have to ask Secretary Paulson that question.
Because I've asked that question
in my role as head of the Congressional Oversight Panel,
and so far I haven't gotten an answer. Maybe you'll get a better one.
( phone ringing )
Woman: Good afternoon. Hank Paulson's office.
Yeah, this is Michael Moore.
I'd like to talk to Mr. Paulson.
- I'm sorry. Your name again? - Michael Moore.
- Michael Moore? - Yup.
- ( hangs up ) - Hello? Hello?
This is crazy what they're doing with our money.
If I could get them to actually give the money back--
I'd be in favor of that.
We're here to get the money back for the American people.
I understand, sir, but you can't come in.
- Can you just take the bag? - No.
- Take it up there? - Absolutely not.
Fill it up. I got more bags.
10 billion probably won't fit in here.
You can't help me get the money?
I can't help you get the money.
What would happen if I made a run for it right now?
Moore: So I went to another bank.
We want our money back.
I went to all the banks.
- You've seen this guy? - Yeah.
Okay, we're here to make a citizen's arrest, actually.
Just drop it from the windows.
And everywhere I went...
I got the same reaction.
We're actually here to make a citizen's arrest
of the entire board of directors
and the executives here.
Why don't you speak to my supervisor?
- That's him right here. - Where's he at?
- In the white shirt? Blue tie? - Yup.
- That's him. - Receding hairline?
They're using the money to buy other companies.
This is our money.
Oh, this is a police officer.
I wanted to make a citizen's arrest of the CEO.
- Mr. Blankfein. - ( chuckles )
But you're here, so maybe you could help me.
- Let's do it outside. - $170 billion of our taxpayer money.
- You're not allowed in the building, sir. - But I'm here to make an arrest.
- I'm here to make an arrest. - Make it outside, sir.
I can't make it outside. They're upstairs.
I'll make an arrest, sir.
You can arrest somebody?
If you can arrest somebody, I can arrest somebody.
Sir, leave the building, sir.
Who else do you want to leave the building?
Your cameraman and your crew. Come on out, sir.
They don't speak English. Donde?
These guys have broken so many laws, you know?
This is money. It's theft, it's fraud.
I'm gonna take it back to the US Treasury
right in this car.
It's safe. You can trust me.
( grunts )
There's just these little hints
that the unimaginable
could occur, which is that...
people in general
in the United States could actually
become angry
at the wealthy.
Shame on you! Shame on you!
Shawn: People who became rich in this country
in the last decades were not even making
the things that everybody loved.
They were playing games
that ended up actually harming everybody.
( chanting )
So some kind of disease has entered into the economy.
Moore: It was unusual for Americans to turn against the rich
because of the carrot that had always been held out in front of us,
that we too could be one of them someday.
People were starting not to believe that.
And that frightened the rich.
Because off in the distance they heard something coming
and it wasn't another dry martini.
It was the friggin' people.
We are ready to take this country
in a fundamentally new direction.
That's what's happening in America right now.
Change is what's happening in America.
Moore: Holy shit.
This was not what Wall Street wanted.
What if he won?
What would happen to their way of life?
So they did what they always do.
They threw as much money at him as they could.
Goldman Sachs became his number-one private contributor
with nearly $1 million in contributions.
But yet they still weren't sure what he would do.
How did he really feel about them
and their way of life?
My attitude is that if the economy is good for folks from the bottom up,
it's gonna be good for everybody.
Senator Obama is running to spread the wealth.
Joe the Plumber said to him
that plan sounded like socialism.
( Russian music playing )
Joe: I love America.
I want to make sure it stays a democracy and not a socialist society.
I really think he's gonna bring socialism if he gets half a chance.
I don't trust Obama at all.
I left Europe four decades ago
because socialism has killed opportunities there.
"Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie
so someone else can have more."
I want all my pie.
Barack Obama is a socialist, it's that simple.
Moore: The scare campaign wasn't working.
In fact, the more they called Obama a socialist,
the more he went ahead in the polls.
And by using the word so much,
it made a new generation curious about what that was.
For instance, few of them knew
there was actually a socialist in the United States Senate.
Of course he was from the gay state of Vermont.
( moos )
You say that you're a socialist. Tell me what that means.
I'm a democratic socialist,
which means that the function of government is to represent
middle income and working people
rather than just the wealthy and the powerful.
One of the things that we've done here,
we've become very religious in worshipping greed.
We put on the front pages of the magazines
guys who have made billions of dollars.
We ignore the cops, the firemen, the teachers, the nurses
who every day are doing so much in improving the lives of people.
We've got to change our value system.
Moore: Hmm, that doesn't sound too bad.
I mean, it sounds like something maybe we should try.
Within a few months,
the Rasmussen poll reported
that only 37% of young adults
now favor capitalism over socialism.
I hope the economy will...
( people cheering )
At 11 :00 we project Barack Obama
President-Elect of the United States of America.
( cheering )
Moore: Just two years earlier
had anyone predicted this moment,
they would have been considered crazy.
But that's how fast things change.
It was in an instant
a farewell to the old America.
The country was electrified by his victory.
And suddenly people were inspired
to do things they never would have done before.
Like the sheriff in Detroit
who decided it was time to break the law
in order to help the people.
Warren Evans: Doesn't it seem kind of strange to you
they would seek a government bailout? I thought that's not what they do.
1-0-1 radio.
I thought the free market is you sink or swim.
I just saw them sink and cry like babies
for assistance from everybody else.
Today I will be stopping all mortgage foreclosure sales
in Wayne County.
I cannot in clear conscience allow anymore families
to lose their homes through foreclosure sales.
Moore: What must the banks have thought
seeing the law that was set up to protect their interests
being subverted?
Do you think the free market has failed Detroit?
Well, I mean, I think that the free market failed the country.
You know, this is crazy.
Neighborhoods that are completely destroyed
because too many homes have been foreclosed.
And then you wonder, is this really America
or is this a third-world country?
Exactly what are we doing here?
Until things get so bad that people can do nothing but protest,
and then those are called revolutions.
Moore: And sometimes revolutions begin
in unlikely places.
Wake up.
Moore: Living in the back of a truck
after a bank foreclosed on the home they had owned for 22 years,
the Trody family of Miami, with the help of their neighbors,
took matters into their own hands.
On behalf of this family and this community,
we liberate this home for this family.
Cut the sign down. Take it off.
- ( applause ) - Yay!
When I say community, y'all say power.
- Community! - Power!
Moore: It wasn't long before the guy from the bank
who had evicted them came back.
See this?
I want you to go ahead and take a picture of that.
You're trespassing.
We did an eviction here and the people went back inside the property.
Yes. So I need police assistance.
When all these houses are empty
the value of everybody else's house goes down.
So if you can keep these people in this house
that will help not only them...
So you see, the situation is that the people--
if the bank lets them go back inside,
then the bank misses the opportunity to sell the house to somebody else.
The banks are selling so many houses right now.
Well, if the bank lets everybody get back inside the house for free--
Then people will have places to live.
Moore: People fighting back was an unusual sight.
So nine police cars responded to the call.
Considering the neighborhood,
the response time was impressive.
- You are not in charge. - I'm not saying I'm in charge.
I'm saying she doesn't want to be isolated. You don't have to answer any questions.
You don't have to say anything to them, okay?
Moore: But the Trodys stood their ground.
We don't have nowhere else to go.
- This was the backup plan. - We're forced to live inside of a truck.
This was our plan B. We don't have no plan C.
That is our grandma and it's not right.
She's been in this house for 22 years and y'all gonna put her out?
How do you feel putting people out of their homes
every single frickin' day?
You should rather be home instead of do something like that.
Where is the money the federal government put in the bank?
We should be telling you that you're trespassing because this is our house.
( crowd yelling )
Rooted like a tree, rooted like a tree
We are here
Stand up strong...
Let's go.
- We did good. We did good. - All right.
Moore: The police and the man from the bank were sent packing.
Ain't no power like the power of the people.
And the power of the people don't stop. Say what?
Ain't no power like the power of the people.
And the power of the people don't stop. Say what?
Don't leave your home.
Because you know what?
When those companies say they have your mortgage,
unless you have a lawyer that can put his finger
or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage.
And you're gonna find that they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street.
So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes.
Don't you leave in Ohio and Michigan,
in lndiana and lllinois and all these other places
where our people are being treated like chattel.
Andthis Congress is stymied.
Moore: Wow.
It's not every day you get to see a member of Congress
encouraging open rebellion.
Back in Chicago,
the workers at Republic Windows & Doors
had a bright idea.
They decided that on second thought,
it wasn't okay to be fired without notice,
to be denied their vacation and severance pay
and to have their medical benefits cut off.
So they came up with a plan.
Tell Bank of America and the owners of the company
that it was a new day in America.
They weren't going to leave the building
until they were paid what they were owed.
Yes, it was a good old fashioned sit-down strike.
Man: We understand that perhaps
some bad business deals were made.
But guess what? We don't make business deals.
We make windows and doors.
Why should we be punished?
Moore: The union organizers and the workers
prepared for a police assault that was sure to come.
I'm gonna take the chance.
You're prepared to be arrested?
I am prepared to be arrested if it's necessary.
We've been here since yesterday and we aren't going anywhere.
We are committed to this.
Moore: It wasn't long before the media showed up.
And given the mood of the country toward the bailout,
even the TV anchors had run out of sympathy for the banks.
In Chicago, a group of factory workers watched like the rest of us
as taxpayers bailed out the financial industry.
Now these laid-off workers are demanding Bank of America
spend some of its bailout money on them.
It says "Bank Robbers of America."
Look, if we the taxpayers are going to provide
a bailout for companies like Bank of America,
then the least they can do is use those funds
on American workers and companies.
Woman: $25 billion to Bank of America.
How do people sleep at night when they act like that?
I don't get it.
Because what's the point of bailing them out
if there aren't any jobs?
Moore: The strike went on day after day.
The police had not yet come.
But the son of a Chicago steelworker did.
He just also happened to be the bishop in Chicago.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am Bishop James Wilkowski.
I know that you are all undergoing
a great trial.
You are teaching
to our young people
that it is just
to challenge that which is unfair.
I grew up on the far southeast side of Chicago
and I saw what happened
when all the steel mills disappeared.
And I saw the impact that it had
on families.
But this time
we are with you.
And we will not abandon you.
In the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The body of Christ.
President Obama: When it comes to the situation
here in Chicago with the workers
who are asking for the benefits and payments
that they have earned, I think they're absolutely right.
( cheering )
What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening
across this economy.
Reporter: He said, "What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening..."
Reporter #2: He said what is happening to those workers
is reflective to what's happening across this economy.
I was watching Obama's press conference this morning.
I just got out of bed and decided
the best thing I could do was to feed people.
So I brought some food.
- I brought some sandwiches. - Oh, good.
Moore: In fact, lots of Chicagoans showed up to support the workers.
Reporter: The workers have become a national symbol
for thousands of employees laid off across the country.
Reporter #2: The sit-in has grabbed the attention of politicians
who believe it exemplifies an imbalance between a Wall Street
that gets government help and a Main Street that gets the shaft.
Moore: The question started to be asked:
Was this is the beginnings of a worker's revolt against Wall Street?
The people united.
We'll never be defeated.
Bail out workers, not the banks. Bail out workers, not the banks.
Moore: Pledges of financial support and food showed up by the truckload.
Woman: It's really beyond what we had at first initially imagined.
And so now we're dreaming a little bit
We even had a conversation-- well, what if we just tried
to run the factory like a cooperative?
We don't have any money. We're not capitalists.
We're having those kind of conversations
and the workers are thinking about it and it's a difficult thing
'cause, you know, if you've been told your whole life
that things are the way other people tell you they are,
to be able to think I can make it different
is quite a big deal.
We're all over the national news. Everyone is watching you
because they're so inspired by you. ( speaks Spanish )
Moore: After six days of the sit-in
Bank of America decided enough was enough.
Better to pay off these workers now
and hope their little revolution goes away.
And so the bank and the company agreed to all the worker's demands.
Yes we did! Yes we did!
The average package for each worker
will be very close to $6,000.
But this is about more than just money.
It's about what can be achieved
when workers organize and stand up for justice.
Just to fight-- fight fight fight fight fight
just to get the most basic thing
that people should take for granted
and that's legally theirs.
We just fight so hard just for the most basic things in life.
Moore: It's a fight we knew all too well in Flint, Michigan.
For it was here that my uncle and his fellow workers
first brought down the mighty corporate interests
that dominated their lives.
It was the day before New Year's Eve in 1936.
Hundreds of men and women took over the GM factories in Flint
and occupied them for 44 days.
They were the first union that beat an industrial corporation.
And their actions eventually resulted
in the creation of a middle class.
But back in these days of the Flint sit-down strike,
the police and the company thugs were not going to just stand by.
After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan,
with the support of the President of the United States
Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National Guard.
But the guns of the soldiers weren't used on the workers.
They were pointed at the police
and the hired goons,
warning them to leave these workers alone.
For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside
had a right to a redress of their grievances.
Seven years later, President Roosevelt was too sick
to go up to the Capitol and give his annual State of the Union Address.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the President of the United States.
It has been my custom to deliver these annual messages in person.
Moore: So he gave it from the White House over the radio.
When it was over he asked the newsreel cameras
to step into his room because he wanted the American people
to see one particular part of his speech.
The President of the United States then took the radical step
of proposing a second Bill of Rights
to the Constitution.
In our day certain economic truths
have become accepted as self-evident.
A second Bill of Rights
under which a new basis of security and prosperity
can be established for all
regardless of station or race or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food
and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer
to raise and sell his products
at a return which will give him and his family
a decent living;
The right of every businessman large and small
to trade in an atmosphere of freedom,
freedom from unfair competition and domination
by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care
and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection
from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accidents
and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security..
And afterthis waris won,
we must be prepared to move forward
in the implementation of these rights
to new goals of human happiness and wellbeing.
For unless there is security here at home,
there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
Moore: Roosevelt would be dead in little over a year.
He would not live to see the end of the war.
Nor would there be any enactment of his new Bill of Rights.
Had he lived and succeeded,
every American, regardless of race,
would have had a right to a decent job...
a livable wage...
universal health care...
a good education...
an affordable home...
a paid vacation...
and an adequate pension.
None of this would come to pass.
No American would be guaranteed any of this.
But the people of Europe and Japan
got every one of these rights.
How did that happen?
After the war, the people of RooseveIt's administration
went overseas to help rebuild Europe.
During this time new constitutions were written
for the defeated nations of Germany, ltaly and Japan.
The ltalian constitution
guaranteed all women equal rights.
And thiswas 1947.
The German constitution said that the state has the right
to take over property and the means of production
for the common good.
And here's what we wrote up for the Japanese.
All workers have a right to organize into a union.
And academic freedom is guaranteed.
For the next 65 years
we would not become the country
that Roosevelt wanted us to be.
Instead, we became this...
I remember thinking during the Katrina flood,
"Why is it always the poor
who have to suffer the misery?
Why isn't it ever Bernie Madoff up on the roof
screaming for help?
Or the head of Citibank
or the hedge fund guys at Goldman Sachs?
Or the CEO at AlG?"
It never is these guys, is it?
It's always those who never got a slice of the pie
because these men took it all
and left them with nothing,
Ieft them to die.
I refuse to live in a country like this.
And I'm no leaving.
We live in the richest country in the world.
We all deserve a decent job,
healthcare, a good education,
a home to call our own.
We all deserve FDR's dream.
And it'sa crimethat we don't have it.
And we never will,
as long as we have a system that enriches the few
at the expense of the many.
Capitalism is an evil.
And you cannot regulate evil.
You have to eliminate it and replace it with something
that is good for all people.
And that something is called democracy.
Crimes have been committed in this building.
I am here to make a citizen's arrest.
Please come down and step away from the building.
Do not be afraid.
Federal prison is a nice place.
You know, I can't really do this anymore
unless those of you who are watching this in the theater
want to join me.
I hope you will.
And please, speed it up.
Arise ye workers from your slumber
Arise ye prisoners of want, that's right
For reason in revolt now thunders
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize
So comrades, come on and rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the whole darn human race
So comrades, come on
Let's go rally
Andthe lastlast fight let us face
The Internationale
Unitesthe whole darn human race
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
Each atthe forge must do their duty
And we'll strike whilethe iron is hot
So comrades, come on, let's go rally
Andthe lastlast fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the whole beautiful human race
So comrades, come on, let's go rally
Andthe lastlast fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the whole darn human race.
Jesus Christ was a man
That traveled throughthe land
A carpenter true and brave
And he saidtothe rich
Give your goods to the poor
And they laid Jesus Christ in the grave
Hewenttothe sick
And he went to the poor
And hewenttothe hungry
Andthe lame
And he saidthatthe meek
Would inherit the wholeworld
And they laid Jesus Christ in the grave
One day Jesus stopped
At a rich man's door
What must I do to be saved?
Take all you own
And give ittothepoor
And they laid Jesus Christ in the grave
When the love of the poor
Shall one day turn to hate
When the patience of the workers
Gives away
it would better forthe rich
If they'd never been born
So they laid Jesus Christ in the grave
When Jesus came to town
All theworking folks around
Believed what he did say
But bankers and preachers
Nailed him tothe cross
And they laid Jesus Christ in the grave
the people held theirbreath
When they heard about his death
And everybody wondered why
itwasthe landlord and soldiers
Lawmen they had hired
That nailed Jesus Christ in the sky
We would lay Jesus Christ
In the grave Lord, Lord
We would lay Jesus Christ in the grave
If Jesus preached today
Like he preached in Galilee
They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave.