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From MSNBC's Morning Meeting, Dylan Ratigan talks to author and former managing director for Goldman Sachs Nomi Prins about this week's article in the UK Times I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs.

Think Progress has more--Goldman Sachs CEO says he’s ‘doing God’s work,’ rejects the idea that Goldman profits from gov’t support:

Last quarter, Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs made a $3.19 billion profit, and according to some estimates, the firm will set aside $21.9 billion for compensation this year. In an interview with London’s Sunday Times, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that the firm is serving an important “social purpose” by helping companies grow, and denied the idea that Goldman is only able to make record profits thanks to government support.

Blankfein dismisses any suggestion that Goldman needed to be bailed out, and, by extension, rejects any notion that the firm is now profiting from public support. Sure, he took $10 billion from Washington’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). But the bank has since repaid the cash, with healthy interest — 23%. Goldman also benefited from the federal bail-out of the huge US insurance firm AIG. Goldman had bought $20 billion worth of insurance from AIG and received billions of dollars — perhaps as much as $13 billion — when Washington pumped $90 billion into the stricken giant. But Blankfein insists Goldman was “hedged” against any AIG losses, in the best possible way — with cash.

Via Raw Story, this very enlightening news that the Bush administration blocked efforts to enforce laws against predatory lending. We are so shocked:

Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says.

In 2004, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, an obscure regulatory agency tasked with ensuring the fiscal soundness of America's banks, invoked an 1863 law to give itself the power to override state laws against predatory lending. The OCC told states they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws.

Now, a research paper (PDF) from UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital shows that those anti-predatory lending laws had actually worked. States that had stricter regulations on issuing mortgages were found to have fewer foreclosures.

"We believe that these findings are remarkable, since they suggest an important and yet unexplored link between [anti-predatory lending laws] and foreclosures," the study's authors state.

The study may be the first scientific evidence to back up claims made by many critics that the Bush administration and earlier administrations allowed last year's financial crisis to happen by not enforcing common-sense regulations on lenders.

Last year, seven months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing government banking bailout, then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer wrote a Washington Post column in which he described how the Bush administration blocked states' efforts to prevent a crisis in the mortgage industry.

Spitzer wrote:

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Spitzer's Post column ran a month before the New York Times reported that federal authorities were investigating Spitzer as a patron of high-end hookers, ending his political career and long-running crusade against corporate malfeasance. Some observers, including investigative reporter Greg Palast, say this was not a coincidence.

Oops, just kidding! Just think, if they'd actually admitted the banks were in deep trouble, and that their assets weren't worth a dime, the crisis might have bottomed out a lot sooner - and the banks wouldn't have been able to use TARP funds to buy up their competitors!

Senior U.S. officials deliberately misled the American people about the health of banks receiving huge government cash infusions last year, according to a report released today from the Treasury Department TARP watchdog.

The officials believed they were telling noble lies. The idea was that confidence needed to be restored and panic stemmed, even if this meant misleading the public about the actual health of our financial institutions.

Of course, this backfired. The government and the bailout lost public credibility when the financial crisis deepened, according to TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky's report.

Worse, the lies may have made the crisis worse by creating false expectations that the bailed out banks would be able to increase lending. Businesses and individuals planning to borrow would have discovered that their projects were impossible and their savings inadequate as banking lending continued to fall.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the $125 billion injection into nine banks in October 2008 was a program for "healthy" institutions. But privately senior officials believed several of those firms were less than healthy. Hank Paulson himself believed one of those institutions might fail.

"By stating that healthy' institutions would be able to increase overall lending, Treasury may have created unrealistic expectations about the institutions' condition and their ability to increase lending," the report said.

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Michael Moore joined the set of the Larry King Live for the full hour. Here's part of the first segment where Michael talks about how much richer the upper one percent have gotten, how much Wall Street loves corporate welfare when they get into trouble and why Wall Street and large corporations are happy when they lay off workers in the United States.

KING: Are you saying capitalism is a failure?

MOORE: Yes. Capitalism. Yes. Well, I don't have to say it. Capitalism, in the last year, has proven that it's failed. All the basic tenets of what we've talked about the free market, about free enterprise and competition just completely fell apart. As soon as they lost, essentially, our money, they came running to the federal government for a bailout -- for welfare, for socialism. And it -- it -- I thought the basic principle of capitalism was that it's about a -- it's a sink or swim situation. And those who do well, the cream rises to the top and, you know, those who invest their money wrongly or, you know, don't run their business the right way, then they don't do well.

And if you run your business the wrong way, where does it say that you or I or anybody watching this has to bail them out?

I understand -- I understand why everybody seemed to get behind it, because a lot of people were afraid, because these people down on Wall Street had taken our money and made bets with it. I mean, they essentially created this invisible virtual casino with people's money -- people's pension funds, people's 401(k)s. They took this money and they made bets. And then they made bets on the bets. And then they took out insurance policies on the bets. And then they took out insurance against the insurance -- the credit default swaps.

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Turning to Sarah Palin to explain the international economy and the role of government is like asking a dog why it likes to lick its rear end. But as an audience of investors and fund managers learned today in Hong Kong, Palin's cartoon-quality conservative platitudes don't merely fly in the face of the consensus of economic analysts. As a flashback to her catastrophic interview with Katie Couric reveals, Sarah Palin doesn't even agree with herself.

Palin's rewriting of history begins with the causes of the global economic meltdown. While the villains behind the calamity are many (see, for example, Time and the New York Times' excellent series, "The Reckoning"), for Sarah Palin there is only one. As the Wall Street Journal summed up her closed-door remarks:

"We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom," she added.

Of course, those "government fixes" were not only badly need to stem the financial crisis, they've already paid huge dividends in reversing the slide of American gross domestic product (GDP), refilling empty state coffers and preserving up to a million jobs. As the reliably Republican Wall Street Journal put it three weeks ago:

"Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus."

And during the 2008 campaign, then Governor Palin agreed about the need for government intervention. In her own confused and incoherent way, Palin defended to Katie Couric one year ago this week the kind of government bailouts she now decries. The benefits from $700 billion plan she and running John McCain endorsed, she insisted, all fall "under the umbrella of job creation."

"Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy- Helping the -- Oh, it's got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans."

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NY Times:

Precisely one year ago, we lucky taxpayers took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants that contributed mightily to the wild and crazy home-loan-boom-turned-bust. In that rescue operation, the Treasury agreed to pony up as much as $200 billion to keep Fannie in the black, coughing up cash whenever its liabilities exceed its assets. According to the company’s most recent quarterly financial statement, the Treasury will, by Sept. 30, have handed over $45 billion to shore up the company’s net worth.

It is still unclear what the ultimate cost of this bailout will be. But thanks to inquiries by Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, we do know of another, simply outrageous cost. As a result of the Fannie takeover, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars in legal defense bills for three top former executives, including Franklin D. Raines, who left the company in late 2004 under accusations of accounting improprieties. From Sept. 6, 2008, to July 21, these legal payments totaled $6.3 million.

With all the turmoil of the financial crisis, you may have forgotten about the book-cooking that went on at Fannie Mae. Government inquiries found that between 1998 and 2004, senior executives at Fannie manipulated its results to hit earnings targets and generate $115 million in bonus compensation. Fannie had to restate its financial results by $6.3 billion.

Almost two years later, in 2006, Fannie’s regulator concluded an investigation of the accounting with a scathing report. “The conduct of Mr. Raines, chief financial officer J. Timothy Howard, and other members of the inner circle of senior executives at Fannie Mae was inconsistent with the values of responsibility, accountability, and integrity,” it said.

That year, the government sued Mr. Raines, Mr. Howard and Leanne Spencer, Fannie’s former controller, seeking $100 million in fines and $115 million in restitution from bonuses the government contended were not earned. Without admitting wrongdoing, Mr. Raines, Mr. Howard and Ms. Spencer paid $31.4 million in 2008 to settle the litigation.

When these top executives left Fannie, the company was obligated to cover the legal costs associated with shareholder suits brought against them in the wake of the accounting scandal.

Now those costs are ours. Between Sept. 6, 2008, and July 21, we taxpayers spent $2.43 million to defend Mr. Raines, $1.35 million for Mr. Howard, and $2.52 million to defend Ms. Spencer.“I cannot see the justification of people who led these organizations into insolvency getting a free ride,” Mr. Grayson said. “It goes right to the heart of what people find most disturbing in this situation — the absolute lack of justice.”

If you haven't been following Alan Grayson, he has been an absolutely stalwart progressive in the House and really pushing for sensible reform to prevent another economic meltdown.

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Pam Spaulding happened upon this character named Steven Anderson, who preaches from the pulpit at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. I compiled some of the more, ah, interesting bits from the sermons I surveyed into the 20-minute audio above.

As you can hear, this is pure eliminationism with a Biblical veneer. First he demands that all gays and lesbians face the death penalty:

The same God who instituted the death penalty for murders is the same god who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals, sodomites and queers!

That's what it was instituted for, okay? That's God, he hasn't changed. Oh, God doesn't feel that way in the New Testament ... God never "felt" anything about it, he commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed.

You know why God wanted the sodomites in the Old Testament to be killed? You know why every good king of Israel, the Bible says they got rid of the sodomites in the land? You know, the good kings that came after the bad kings who had allowed the sodomites to infest their land, they had infiltrated ... King Asa got the sodomites out of the land, Jehoshaphat exterminated the sodomites that were left from the days of his father, Asa. Why? Because the sodomites are infectious, that's why. Because they're not reproducers, that goes without saying, they're recruiters.

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they're multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there's more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They're reproducing right? No, here's a biology lesson: they're not reproducers, they're recruiters! And you know who they're after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That's who they're after. You drop them off at some daycare, you drop them off at some school somewhere, you don't know where they're at. I'll tell you where they're at: they're being recruited by the sodomites. They're being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.

They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It's not a physical disease, it's a sin disease, it's a wicked, filthy sin disease and it's spreading on a rampage. Can't you see that it's spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it's just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting 'em.

[Via RightWing Watch.]

Then he rips into Barney Frank, blaming him for the economic collapse:

I'm here to preach the Bible. And I'm sick to death -- hey, let me tell you something. Our country is run by faggots. You know who wrote this 700-billion-dollar bailout bill? You know who was the man who was the architect of the bailout? His name is Barney Franks, he is a pedophile, he has been arrested for uh, interacting with boys that are in their teenage years when he's in his 50s, it's in the news, he's been arrested for it. He is a pedophile, he is a homosexual, he has stood up in the floor of the sacred halls of justice and said, 'I am gay, I am a sodomite.'

That's Barney Frank, that's who just sold our country into fascism. That's who just sold our corporations to the government. That's who sold out our country, a faggot! And I'm here to tell you something! I'm not going to stand for it, and let a faggot run the church! It's bad enough that we've got a bunch of faggots running the government!

Most disturbing of all, you can hear him, in his Aug. 16 sermon titled "I Hate Barack Obama," not only openly avow his complete and utter hatred of the president, but openly wish for his death -- because of his support for abortion rights and the "lewdness" he supposedly has brought to American society.

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Take a look at the trailer for Michael Moore's new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story." Moore appears poised to knock it out of the park again.

"It's a crime story. But it's also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it's also a love story. Only it's about an abusive relationship.

"It's not about an individual, like Roger Smith, or a corporation, or even an issue, like health care. This is the big enchilada. This is about the thing that dominates all our lives — the economy. I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.

"It's a comedy." — Michael Moore

Okay, let's see if I'm following this. The administration is talking about lending money to small businesses because the banks to which they've already funneled billions didn't do the thing all that money was supposed to do: make them open up the taps and lend working capital to businesses.

Are we clear now?

The Obama administration is developing an initiative to take money from the $700 billion program for the banking system and make it available to millions of small businesses, which officials say are essential to any economic recovery because they employ so many people, according to sources familiar with the plan.

The new effort -- which would represent a striking shift from the rescue program's original mandate -- would direct billions of bailout dollars toward a program that aims more at saving jobs than righting the financial system.

A proposal being floated by senior Treasury Department officials calls for using the bailout funds to expand an existing government program that helps small companies borrow money from banks a low rates to keep their businesses going, the source said. These "working capital" loans would come with few restrictions and could be used for buying inventory, holding onto employees and paying off short-term debt.

The initiative would expand a Small Business Administration lending program called 7(a), the agency's most popular lending program. Lines of credit for small companies could greatly increase in size. If the firm failed despite receiving this help, the government would cover most of the losses on the federal loan, perhaps as much as 90 percent. Lines of credit act like the credit cards for companies -- short-term revolving debt used to pay a variety of immediate expenses.

Discussions about the plan have reached the highest levels of the administration. In a meeting at the White House last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner expressed support of his staff's proposal, while National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers was more skeptical. Neither has made up his mind, officials said.

"Larry has supported every small business idea we have implemented so far," said Gene Sperling, a counselor to Geithner, who has been working on small business issues. "When we have a brainstorming session on new ideas, Larry as always asks the toughest questions in the room."

The debate over the proposal has centered on whether taxpayers would be protected and whether banks that make these loans would lower their standards if the government promises to cover most of any loan losses, according to participants present or briefed on the discussions. The spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversations were considered private.

On one hand, administration officials want to prevent healthy small businesses from closing their doors and adding their workers to the growing ranks of the unemployed. But small companies have poorer record of repaying loans compared to large corporations and would be the riskiest investment made under the bailout program to date.

The officials said the discussions are in the early stages and that no plan is expected before the fall. Ideas currently on the table may evolve or be scrapped altogether, they said.

Anything that creates or maintains jobs is good, but I wonder if this will really do that. I think too many of those small businesses are already gone.

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(In the era of funny money - $1.5 mil got you this fixer-upper)

As California continues it's circle around the monetary drain, I was reminded of another fiscal crisis on the other side of the country. New York and the big default of 1975 - the one where President Ford all but said drop dead to Mayor Beame and his request for Federal bailout funds. Interesting times - they became something of a pattern for American cities during those years. New York, Cleveland, Detroit. And the offshoots - Prop 13 for California. The Savings and Loan Scandal. All potential crises, swept under the carpet of history and forgotten about.

I ran across this documentary, part of NPR's "Options" series called "Growing Economic Problems for U.S. Cities", which ran in September of 1975.

It features Mayors Abraham Beame of New York and Coleman Young of Detroit, along with Treasury Secretary William Simon and Senators Jacob Javits and Hubert Humphrey, all wrestling with the impending fiscal crisis.

New York City Comptroller Harrison Golden has an interesting take on it - I'm sure much of it echoes today.

“The politicians who developed the tricks and all of the devices that built in the seeds of disaster bear a measure of the blame. So does the media, the press which heralded those sleights of hand as representing mathematical ingenuity or fiscal wizardry. What all those steps were was delaying till tomorrow which should have been the problems on the day in which those tricks were used. The banks are to blame because they made money off of the devices that were developed. The citizens generally and businesses are to blame because they wanted a free lunch, wanted more service without paying for it. There’s plenty of responsibility, plenty of culpability to go around.“

Plenty of culpability. And plenty more now where that came from.

UPDATE: I wanted to thank everyone for their help today. We got this from one of our contacts at ACORN: "After about 2.5 hours, the bank agreed to postpone the foreclosure auction on Ms. Leary's house for 30 days. We'll be using that time to pressure them to sit down with her and come to a long-term solution to keeping her in her house."

You wouldn't believe how many e-mails I get every day, pleading with me to help with this cause or that. Usually I delete them because there's only so much I can do about all these problems. But this one (via ACORN - you know, the group Bill O'Reilly loves to hate?) really jumped out at me because it's far too emblematic of what thousands of people are facing right this minute. I can only imagine if my mother was in the same position:

Dear Susan,
I love my mom. Her name is Irene. She's 84-years-old, and she is the most important person in the world to me.

Today, her bank is selling the house she has lived in for 34 years, and it's breaking my heart.

The unbelievable part of it is that OneWest -- the bank -- doesn't even have to talk with my mom before selling her house right out from under her. That's because OneWest is among four big mortgage service companies that haven't signed on to President Obama's program to help stop foreclosures. It's the "Making Home Affordable" plan, and even though OneWest is the recipient of federal bailout money, they are still taking my mom's home away today.

Will you sign a letter to the CEO of OneWest before they sell my mother's home today? Click here. ACORN is sending copies of the letter to the CEOs of the other three banks whose mortgage servicing companies won't sign on to the Making Home Affordable plan (Litton of Goldman Sachs, HomEq of Barclays, and American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc, along with OneWest), because my mom isn't the only one who needs help right now.

But don't misunderstand me: my mother will lose her home today unless we can convince OneWest not to sell her house. Please help her. Sign the letter now. Click here.

I asked my mom to tell me about how she got into this situation -- she's been the same house for 34 years, after all. How did this happen?

Here's what my mom told me:

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Judging from the talking points being constantly spewed by the likes of Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Max Baucus (DLC-MT), Blanche Lincoln (DLC-AR), Mary Landrieu (DLC-LA), Joe Lieberman (DLC-CT), and Ben Nelson (DLC-NE), and by the coverage in the corporate media, all of it driven primarily by corporate dollars, one would think that most people oppose Obama's tyrannical plans to impose dreaded health care reform on the American people. But, no. Americans overwhelmingly want health care reform. Wisely, they don't trust the crooked CEOs who run the insurance companies and they don't trust the bought off, sold out Republicans in Congress. Every single poll that comes out shows that Americans-- by gargantuan margins-- favor genuine, government-run health care.

That's why the insurance companies and their shills in Congress are fighting tooth and nail, like mad dogs, to kill the compromise between an Insurance company bailout (the Senate Finance Committee plan authored by Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley) and single payer. The compromise, which offers consumers a choice, is called the "public option." Anyone who likes their for-profit Insurance company's service can stick with it. Otherwise, they can opt for the non-profit government run plan. Studies by the insurance industry show that within a couple of years there will be virtually no people choosing for-profit insurance companies.

John is in Florida but he e-mailed me this story from the NY Times and asked me to pass it along and remind people that Blue America is asking for donations for the television ads we're doing to make Arkansas voters aware that their senator isn't really their senator; Blanche Lincoln belongs to the Big Business CEOs who have financed her career. While she works behind the scenes to protect the interests of her Insurance Industry patrons, Americans "are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll." Even half the respondents who admitted they are Republicans prefer this plan, while among normal Americans, the margins are staggering. Look at this chart and then please consider learning more about (or donating to) our Campaign for Health Care Choice.

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Why exactly does George W. Bush think he has even a smidgen of credibility when discussing economic issues? Here's what he said yesterday:

"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."

Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.

"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States," he said to huge cheers.

Brian Williams briefly mentioned it in his newscast yesterday, pointing out that it was actually Bush who signed the first bailout packages for the banks and auto and insurance industries. But that was really only the half of it.

Ed Shultz, on his MSNBC show yesterday, did an admirable job of tackling the rest of the matter:

What did he do? Attack the president of the United States and basically did what he does pretty well, which is rewrite history. Now Bush is babbling, trying to make sense out of the worst eight years this country has ever had since the Great Depression.

And if he‘s going to go out and do this, and I think we need to remind the American people, and I think we have an obligation to say this—Bush gave us what? Record deficits, record foreign debt, record trade deficits, butchering the middle class, letting the financial sector run wild with absolutely no oversight. Those are a just a few things—I don‘t have a whole hour to do this, but the American people are not stupid. Our new NBC News poll proves this. The American people do not blame Barack Obama for the fiscal condition of this country.

Here are the numbers. Fifty-three percent say that Bush and the congressional Republicans are to blame. Only six percent blame President Obama. Now, weeks ago, the president said he didn‘t want to second-guess the current president. That‘s exactly what he‘s doing. Bush is lying and he is setting the framework for the Republicans to make the case against President Obama at a very tough time. Gosh, how one speech can change people. It‘s almost like the state of the union address, the 16 words.

This is the last person that anybody in the Obama administration should pay attention to. Bush has no credibility. He has no authority. He has no clue what‘s going on. You see, he didn‘t stop with the economy. Brainless Bush went out and goes after, with a generic statement about health care reform. He really cared about that. He goes on to say, “There are a lot of way to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care.” He also said - “You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.” I tell you what, just a couple of dandies out there on the rubber-chicken circuit.

This is a man who sat there for eight years—eight years—and did absolutely nothing when it comes to the number one issue in this country for families, which is health care. He told you to go out and get a private savings account. This is vintage Bush, appealing to the lowest common denominator when it comes to the problems we face as a country. I guess you could say that things haven‘t changed. They think we‘re stupid. But in the words of the former president, “Fool me once, you can‘t get fooled again, or whatever that was.”

Thanks, Ed. Somebody needed to say it. Too bad you seem to have been one of the few doing so.

Last night, before select audiences in places like Los Angeles and Chicago out to see other films, Michael Moore played a special trailer for his new movie about the financial meltdown. But this wasn't just any trailer:

Hi, I’m Michael Moore. Instead of using this time to tell you about my new movie I’d like to take a moment and ask you to join me in helping our fellow Americans. The downturn in the economy has hurt many people, people who have had no choice but to go on government assistance. Yet our welfare agencies can only do so much. That’s why I’m asking you to reach into your pockets right now and lend a hand. Ushers will be coming down the aisles to collect your donations for Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and a host of other needy banks and corporations. Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking - I already gave at the bailout. And I know you did, but even if you’ve given in the past, give some more. It will make you feel… good.

Sure enough, ushers came down the aisles:

And started passing out the collection cans:

More to the point, audiences laughed and gave:

A writer for FirstShowing was taken aback, and called it "pretty damn crazy." Slashfilm's writer wondered what would happen to the money.

We're told that it actually will be donated to local food banks in the donor cities.

[H/t Jonathan for the pics.]