Coming Attractions: Michael Moore Takes On Wall Street
I remember the night I first saw "Sicko," and I said to my friend, "This movie is going to change the whole health care debate." He was skeptical: "You really think so?" I said yes, that what really struck me was that we're the only Westernized country with for-profit health care, and it never even occurred to me that it wasn't like that everywhere. Once people realized that, I said, there were going to be changes.
Now change isn't far off. And I can't wait to see what Michael Moore does with these Wall Street bozos:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore, who targeted the Bush administration in "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the healthcare industry in "Sicko," is now focusing on the global economic meltdown.
The Oscar-winning director will release his as-yet-untitled documentary across North America on October 2, co-financiers Overture Films and Paramount Vantage said on Thursday.
"The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn't have enough wealth," the statement quoted Moore as saying.
"They wanted more -- a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie."
I thought the same thing. How did the United States of America allow a basic need such as healthcare, which should be considered one of our basic rights of Life, Liberty and Happiness, become a profit making business that makes more money denying healthcare rather than giving it. I hope Michael Moore really gets to the truth of the uber-greedy.
What kind of portfolio does Michael Moore have?
I wonder if there are any Wall St. firms lurking around in there?
I'm sure Moore has received billions of dollars in bailout money.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
Because documentary filmmakers are just FILTHY rich.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Tax the rich and confiscate all the money they stole from the rest of us during the republican age of rapacious greed.
I also hope he shines a much needed light on our corporate fascist GOP media propaganda outlets; and shows what filthy, evil, disgusting pigs people like Grover Norquist really are.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
They would just take the gov to court and waste our money there while the mess continues.
I say we don't tax them for anything as they don't want to pay for it, instead, let's charge them at point of sale for everything, oh and they also lose their right to vote.
So basically consider their estates as mini-nations. They can do whatever they want within their borders as long as it doesn't involve one of our citizens. They want police protection, I'm sure we can negotiate a price (but make sure we get 35% profit). Fire department, same thing. They have to provide their own water/power/postal system etc because they can't leech off of our infrastructure. If they want to connect to our power grid they get charged for installing the cables, maintenance etc at a 35% profit. We also get to install toll booths right at the entrance of their estates, we get to check their odometers and require they wear step counters, when they get back these items get checked and they get charged accordingly plus %35. They commit a crime in our land, they get deported back to their estates and they don't get to enter the USA anymore.
Edit: Forgot to mention no more use of our military to protect or expand their wealth.
Feel free to add to the list.
Wall Street - the cause of all of our problems. Can America handle the truth?
That includes team Obama (Geithner and Sommers) and the DINO jackasses too!
I hope he helps the average idiot learn the real definition of the word fascism. And show them that the reason their lifes suck now, is because the Orwellean conservatives have destroyed the "socialism" that FDR enacted - which was the cornerstone of making the american dream come true for everyone.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Barack Obedient, Little Timmie, Big Ben and the scions of Wall Street, who own them.
Too big to fail, too big to fix and too powerful to prosecute.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Too big to fail, too big to fix and too powerful to prosecute
This country has always been this way, from it's inception, so what else is old?
I think we have our movie title.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
but it was corrupted pretty early on. However, the real rot didn't set in until the early days of the 20th century, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed, and the sixteenth amendment came into force. Those two things really kick-started the beginning of the end.
on enuff fer ya
http://www.sidis.net/TSChap26bw.htm
Things were far from hunky dory before the inception of the federal reserve. Of course that is unless you are a libertarian, because then you would consider the gilded age to be an awesome period of time.
This country was founded by a bunch of rich white land owners who did not feel like paying taxes. So that seems pretty early on...
The Federal Reserve Act was passed as a reaction to a couple of rounds of economic depression, the first in the 1890's, the second in 1907.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
... want to make money, invest in something else but premiums should have gone to provide healthcare not to pay dividends, outrageous salaries and bonuses while those needing healthcare may go bankrupt.
Time to turn off that spigot.
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
is one of the most important film makers of our time. The more he's despised and vilified by the right (and the left!), the more I like him.
I really hoped it would be an accurate expose about the greed-fueled, for-profit insurance industry. But Moore really dropped the opportunity and instead made a movie about Michael Moore. Sorry folks, his movie really could have focused on the many, many outrages we have to endure as Americans when trying to claim the coverage we're raped for, but all I remember is Moore hogging the camera.
you may not be intelligent enough to 'get' Moore's movies.
The fact that you think you remember Moore supposedly mugging for the camera more than the woman who was crying when she realized how much she was getting ripped off for her medication or the woman who had her husband die in front of her eyes because he couldn't get a standard procedure done to prevent his kidneys from failing pretty much confirms that.
BTW, I haven't seen Sicko in at least a year.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
but thanks anyway for the free consultation. My point is that while democrats, republicans, and every American is ripped off by the insurance industry, Moore made himself and his movie an easy target for those who wanted to distort the message while the insurance mogals sculked away. If only those victims resonated in American's thoughts, but they DIDN'T. I remember Michael Moore in a boat to Cuba, which became more the lighting rod than anyone losing their loved ones.
Get that loser.
... the Cuba segment in "Sicko" was the END of the movie. The last 15-20 minutes. You don't consider narration by Moore as hogging, do you?!?
This could have been a fantastic revelation of the organized crime that is our insurance industry, instead Michael Moore made it a revelation about Michael Moore making a movie.
That's my opinion. I respect yours and while Szin is in a pissy mood today and apparently smarter that everyone else, you have to get over it.
'pissy' when I have to read lame attacks on movies that are attempting to entertain while they inform.
You started this conversation with a review of a film you seem to not have really watched that carefully. Don't blame the messenger when you get called on it.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
the fact is that the right wing nutcases would use any excuse to attack Moore's movie regardless of what he did.
Oh and btw, Moore's point about Guantanamo was just supported by a republican when he stated that the kidnapped people in there have better health care than the average American.
Again, though, don't let the fact that you can only remember the sensational bits that the right wants you to remember stop you from feeling intellectually superior.
Facts usually aren't much of an impediment to people like you.
Also, try NOT speaking for all Americans simply because YOU have difficulty paying attention for an hour and a half.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
could have more about the villains instead of the messenger. But what I know, apparently only people like you are worthy of opinionating.
we agree on something! :)
Note: I'm unclear on how it was about the messenger at all. I don't recall Moore having an illness he was trying to have dealt with. What part of the movie was that again?
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
Have you taken a look at box-office stats for documentaries lately? They are NOT block-busters, and the ones that deal with subjects that make the public unhappy, angry or incomfortable are even less than most. In other words, the only reason Sicko got the attention it did was BECAUSE of Moore's presence in the film. If it had been more a "standard" documentary, with the director out of the way, practically NOBODY would have seen it, I guarantee you.
You may find Moore irritating, but his films (and his presence in them, irritating or not) get people TALKING. And thinking and debating. No matter how obnoxious Moore may be, that's incredibly valuable.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Gonna be tough for the Republicans to attack Moore on this one.
Since when has a lack of factual information stopped them from pulling criticisms out of thin air?
Besides which Moore often doesn't let the facts just speak for themselves. He has occasionally slipped in little untruths, needlessly, just to emphasize a point. In that way, he's often his own worst enemy.
DO go on.
How about some examples of these untruths you speak of?
And don't bother quoting some idiotic right wing propaganda site.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
Wrong, John. He cites sources for all the facts he presents. Sanjay Gupta got several smackdowns for accusing him of lying in Sicko. Here's the backup for that, for instance:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/
As for "facts speaking for themselves," that's an absurd concept. Data only take on certain meanings when one attempts to explain them. If you don't agree with his perspective on those data, that's fine--feel free to argue his points--but to say he "slip(s) in little untruths" a cheap, disingenuous way of characterizing his films. The honorable don't do that, and I know you don't want to be dishonorable.
Because he didn't turn out to be right on damn near EVERYTHING HE SAID in Fahrenheit 9/11. Nope, not at all.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Due to the subject nature, I have my doubts a documentary about the financial industry will attract the kind of audiences his other films have.
But then again, I thought the same thing when I first heard plans for SiCKO, and who'd a thunk "Rodger & Me", about the auto industry, would become a classic?
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Since the Dems are just as culpable as the Republicans when it comes to servicing the rich. The Dems just focus on a different group of rich people. Not oil barons and weapons makers. More like studio and network execs. And weapons makers.
give us some facts.
"Hello, my name is JohnF, I will be your red herring for the day..."
It will be eye opening, the Reslug greed.
Biggest transfer of wealth upward in recorded history.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.
• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion
doesn't even count what the Fed has given.. err loaned out.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
in the ghetto bringing down the whole American way of life because she cheated on her food stamps.
but what's going on in our country and most of the rest of the world is not new. The greedy and evil folks have been building empires on the backs of regular folks for eons. They've been using the same techniques too, only now that we have instantaneous communication and HDTV, it's much easier for them to spread the lies and propaganda necessary to confuse the masses in stereo and hi-def color. Promises of a 'better life' and instilling fear and fomenting wars against 'the others' are the simple ways we are always take in. We seem to fall for it every time.
This latest little problem is very clearly an engineered transfer of wealth from the haves to the have-mores. We should demand that the MSM and other news folks quit using the word Recession - this is no recession. This financial debacle is large-scale CRIME, pure and simple. And, we haven't seen the worst of it yet.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I hope Mike has gone after Ruthie Madoff.
my hero. then Bill Maher, then Jon Stewart, then Ricky Gervais. My cabinet.
I am so incredibly there, dudes.
JP
http://giveusthisdayourdailtydread.blogspot.com
...."Now change isn't far off."....
Change?! Not really, Obama is failing on healthcare in that he is trying to work w/ the insurance companies, instead of making them obsolete....
SINGLE PAYER NOW!
If Obama does not make single payer happen he will be a TOTAL failure.
Cue the Kabuki....
"I remember the night I first saw "Sicko," and I said to my friend, "This movie is going to change the whole health care debate."
But Sicko didn't change much - it mostly confirmed the views of those who already wanted single payer. There was no larger debate about health care as a result of that film.
I think Moore blew it by sending his hand-chosen sick Americans to Cuba for treatment. This stunt took up a lot of the movie and played right into to the hands of his pinhead right-wing critics.
There hasn't been a clear examination anywhere in the US media of the basic economic facts of health care. Nobody seems to ask the basic question: if competitive markets are so efficient and productive, why does the US, with its private hospitals and insurance industry, have the most expensive, inaccessible health care in the world? If capitalist medicine worked, Americans would have the cheapest, most accessible care of any country - right?
But nowhere in the media will you hear the obvious truth. Medical care is unlike almost any other good or service. Choice isn't driven by price, but by necessity and by the desire to seek the best care regardless of what it costs. Patients are price-takers - no one shops around for the lowest price gall bladder surgery or cancer treatment. Doctors don't allow price competition anyway - competing on the basis of price is a violation of professional ethics. Any doctor who did this would be kicked out of the AMA.
At the R&D end, the motivation for medical researchers to investigate disease and produce new drugs and treatments is fundamentally different from the creation of new goods and services in non-medical businesses. When Intel invents a more powerful chip, the cost of computing goes down. When Toyota invents a more efficient car engine, the cost of fuel and maintenance go down. The resulting lower cost to consumers attracts more sales. That's capitalism. Medicine doesn't work like this - new cures for diseases and new diagnostic tools tend to drive the cost of medicine up, not down. Medical progress means more expense, not less. This is because medical research is driven not by the desire to reduce cost, but by the need to save lives. As a result price inflation is basically built into the medical system.
This is why private insurance companies constantly try to reject claims for coverage. If they want to keep your premiums and turn them into profits, they have to avoid the potentially open-ended cost of treating disease. Hence the nonsensical denial of coverage on the basis of "pre-existing conditions" and other scams routinely practiced by US insurance companies, that are unknown in single-payer public systems.
Single-payer works not just because everybody is in the same insurance pool and it's non-profit (negating the need to exclude anyone from coverage to preserve profit), but because it's the best way to restrain rising costs. When insurance is a non-profit monopoly, it can control its own costs very effectively, and it can force doctors and hospitals to accept lower returns for their services.
All pretty basic - but nobody talks about this. The only model that provides care to all at a reasonable cost is single-payer. Free-market medicine represents market failure.
changed as much of the debate as it is possible for one movie on a subject to do.
The whole Cuba thing was meant to spark debate about the absurdity of the situation.
Of course the far right nut jobs attacked Moore for it. That was a good thing as it allows people to separate the idiots who use that part of the movie to disparage it from people who actually want to have a useful discussion on the subject.
If you are talking to someone about the movie and they start saying how disgusted they were by Moore going to Cuba you know you can stop wasting your breath right there. They didn't get the point and likely never will.
If they start talking about any of the other cases covered in the movie or the countries that had their health care system looked at you know you might have a chance of having a useful discussion.
We needed another FDR, instead we got another clinton.
Well Cuba is a better, more humane place to live than the US. Especially after the Corporate takeover, police state enforcement and, Banking disaster and thousands of human rights violations of the United States of... Whatever you wanna call yourselves now I guess. United for War? United for Greed?
At least the Cuban people have not had the humanity squeezed from them.
(Go ahead, yell at me for thinking those 'red skinned people' from down south are the moral compass of the future)
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
if Americans depend on a movie to make sure they stand up for their interests... if that is the case, then we are f*cked beyond repair.
I never understood the mentality of the common American, I mean... if you watch the movie, the fact that Cuba was willing to help those American citizens should have been enough to shame us. Instead we rather force untold millions of our citizens into a life of misery, than having the possibility that we could be even remotely wrong on any given subject.
The right wings nuts who attack Moore are ankle biters. His documentaries are right on the money. I can't wait to see whatever he puts out next. I'll see it in the theater (the ONLY movies I'll go to nowadays) and I'll buy the DVD.
the Rich & Powerful wanted more more more POWER ("Raw, Naked Power!"). They hate and fear the "New Deal" which, second only to our Constitution, really was something new and better...for the masses, the dirty peasants, us worker drones.
Along with stealing our money they've made huge encroachments on our civil rights, and nearly wiped out the New Deal. Social Security is still standing, but under constant assault by "Teh Rich". Even tho it works beautifully, they say it has failed, and they've tried every way they can think of to destroy it.
We need a "ReNew Deal". If Pres. Obama can't deliver, then I guess WE will have to do it this time. Can't sit back and hope another Roosevelt will come along.
Did you miss the part about the health care reform discussions in the Senate Finance Committee where the Single Payer advocates, who were not invited to have a seat at the table but showed up anyway asking to speak but were removed from Senate Chambers in handcuffs, arrested for "disruption of Congress"? But all those invited to speak were reps from HMOs, health insurance, Big Pharma-- who, incidentally, are huge donors to Max Baucus, the head of the Senate Finance Committee.
That was real news not reported.
Gee why wasn't it reported? Who owns who eh?
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
He's getting into "conspiracy theory' territory. Pretty soon you'll catch up to everyone else Mike.
The Healthcare system in the US is a criminal organization designed to maximize profits for the corporations involved while providing the least amount of 'care' possible. No cures come out anymore. No cures for anything they have been promising for 30 years. If they could they would have found a lifelong 'treatment' for polio rather than a cure.
The Banking guys ripped off the populace of the US and most of the world all before. They did it TWICE before. Once in the 1890s and once in the 1930s. The Wizard of Oz (Wizard of the Ounce, in reference to gold, 'Follow the yellow brick road') Was based on this robbing of the American people.
If you examine it, its the same corporations, the same families and even the same "One World" "Eugenics is great" crowd.
I'm sorry Mike, but you will not like the evil you find behind the curtain.
'The devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th, the New World Order was born on Sept 11th.' - Immortal Technique
We have had our friendly libertarian trolls telling us over and over and over again how the gold standard would never let those things happen. ;-)
So, L. Frank Baum was what? A financial Che Guevara?
Jesus, dude, you've gotta lay off the absinthe. It's making you babble.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
The economic crisis isn't just about the rich stealing more money from the rest of us. It's about destroying the US economy, a process started in the 1980s and continuing on schedule. It's all about control. The CFR/Trilateral Commission/Bilderberg Group, etc. Go to the website of the CFR, compare it's member list to who is running the Obama administration. Hope Michael explores this angle, but, if he does, he may mind himself the victim of a car or plane accident.
So you're telling me that Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young, Henry Cisneros, Tom Bradley and Donna Shalala, all members at one time or another of the Trilateral Commission are in on the fix? Adlai Stevenson, Bill Moyers and Garrick Utley of the CFR?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
it never even occurred to me that it [the for-profit healthcare system] wasn't like that everywhere.
That's one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Americans. They think not only that it's this way all over the world (and that we're still the envy of everyone) but also that it's always been this way
When Moore put out a call during the making of "Sicko" for personal stories of US healthcare horror, I didn't have any to contribute (I avoid American doctors), but I did send him a request to include the world-renowned Cuban healthcare system in the film somehow. I knew he'd covered it in one of his TV shows, but I still thought Americans should know that there exists a country with free healthcare for everyone, doctors in every neighborhood, and a tradition of sending doctors instead of murderers (soldiers) to poor areas of the world - and not the doctors-as-torturers that the US is currently notorious for. Apparently, it was already in the works, and it moved some coworkers who saw the film to tears. They had no idea things could be like that. Unfortunately, they quickly forgot once the US media switched the focus to the next big thing, and then the next big thing, etc, etc, so now they'd probably have to relearn it all over again.
Our nine month old has a cold and fever. Her trips to the doctor are all free - as many as she needs. And there's a 24 hour a day hotline on which we can speak (in under thirty seconds) with a qualified nurse if we have any concerns about her health whatsoever - also free. But then we live in a civilized country.... (and before you squeal 'socialists!' we're not the ones subsidizing our dairy industry - as the US announced this week that it will be. We believe in free trade and practice what we preach. The US should try that some time).
'Now change isn't far off.'
Really? What change is that? Certainly not single-payer or universal health care--their advocates not only being disinvited to the congressional debate, but ARRESTED for their advocacy!
The other day, Obama mentioned that single-payer, which he conceded was 'popular,' was out of the question because it would be too 'disruptive.' Of course, he left out the fact that it would ONLY be disruptive to the insurance industry.
Thinking that obama is in any way going to bring fair play and decency to our broken and lucrative health care system is, frankly, dilusional.
Now change isn't far off.
LMAO. We learned how true THAT is today.
It'll take another five years at least before anyone brings up universal health care again.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
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