Set of the day

We don't need a movie to tell us something's wrong with the economy. Almost everyone has been touched by a bad mortgage or unsound investment these days. At least a movie can provide answers to how we got here, and hopefully a solution to the problem. Capitalism: A Love Story is Michael Moore's... more

We don't need a movie to tell us something's wrong with the economy. Almost everyone has been touched by a bad mortgage or unsound investment these days. At least a movie can provide answers to how we got here, and hopefully a solution to the problem.

Capitalism: A Love Story is Michael Moore's explanation. The film chronicles Wall Street corruption, mortgage scams and, fortunately, effective protests that are resulting in real change. On DVD and Blu Ray, Capitalism is loaded with extras where the film's experts more fully explain the economic concepts and how people are coping.

This complex situation involves many more questions still. As someone who researched and documented it, Michael Moore can help. He's also adept at explaining things in clear and plain English, not like that doublespeak that keeps people in the dark.

Even as only a voice on the telephone, Michael Moore projects comfort. We are not alone. There are others who support us, and some with the means to educate and empower people to make things better.

Suicide Girls: I knew the idea of interest only loans sounded stupid, but even I let the bank talk me into one anyway. At what point do we have to take responsibility for making bad decisions ourselves?

Michael Moore: You're not responsible when you're fooled.

SG: Thank you. That's actually a comforting way to look at it.

MM: No, seriously. Fred, I'm going to send you 100 free copies of my DVD. You can give them to your friends and family and the people you know.

SG: Really?

MM: Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not going to send you [anything]. I don't have any DVDs to send you, but you see? You believed me.

SG: I get it. It's easy to be fooled.

MM: I would rather that you be a trusting person than a cynical suspicious person and I think that's how you would rather live your life too. I've felt this way my whole life, that when somebody lies to me, I've never felt like I'm the idiot. I feel like wow, Mike, you're a pretty decent guy who you placed your trust in that person and they're the ones who committed the immoral act of lying to you. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you did the right thing.

SG: The film articulates why capitalism doesn't work. What is it about America that we wont't give up on these failed systems?

MM: I know, and you know what? 400 years from now, maybe 100 years from now, historians are going to look at us and they're going to think we're crazy. They're going to go, "Look at these people. They just kept doing the same dumb thing over and over again and they had the power in their hands with democracy. One person, one vote. Even though the one percent owned 95% of the wealth, the other 99 percent had the vote. Yet they didn't use the vote to stop all this greed and all this destruction." We're going to look crazy.

SG: Well, there are contingents who do a very good job convincing the very people they're screwing over to support their policy.

MM: Absolutely. It never ceases to amaze me why, and I'm not a big pro-Democratic Party guy because I've got a lot of problems with them, but I've never understood why working class and poor people vote for Republicans, the party of the wealthy man. They think that the party of the wealthy man is going to help them. They're not going to get anything but a crumb off the table.

SG: I guess you and I can't find an answer to that.

MM: No, it has baffled me and when I do come to an answer, I'll make a movie about it.

SG: Even after all the Wall Street fiascos, they're still pressuring us to invest. Don't worry, I wasn't going to do that before, let alone now, but what are sound things to do with our money?

MM: Number one, don't ever buy a share of stock. I have never owned a share of stock personally. I have never bought one.

SG: It just sounds like a corrupt principal.

MM: It is. Well, it is and here's what's corrupt about it. Number one, you know it's a casino. You know when you walk into a casino, you're not walking out of there a winner. You're going to win for a little bit maybe to create the illusion of winning. What also is wrong with it is that you and I, Fred, we should be earning our money through our sweat or our ideas, not trying to make money off our money. My advice to any working person is if you do have any extra money, and I don't know how you would in this climate and these days, but if you do, I'll just tell you what I do and what I've always done. I remember the grandparents saying, "If you're able to buy your own home, you should put that into your own home." Don't pay more than you should for it but that's always been a good place. It's been bad now for people because they got hoodwinked. Like the guy says in my movie, the FBI even says that at least 70-80% of all this mortgage fraud is fraud committed by the bank, not by the people taking out the loan. The other thing I'd do if I have any extra money is I'll buy a savings bond or a treasury bill or something that the U.S. Government is selling.

SG: In the bonus features, Chris Hedges addresses the very real problem that people just aren't working hard anymore. Is there any way to teach this generation a good work ethic again?

MM: [Heavy sigh and long pause] Wow, that's an intense question. I know the answer and I don't want to say it.

SG: Uh-oh. That sounds so dire.

MM: You know what I mean.

SG: I call it the My Super Sweet 16 generation. People just want to get whatever they want without working for it.

MM: Right, that is the culture, isn't it? Well, the baby boomers that were supposed to create a better world, it's their children that are in that spot. I am one of those baby boomers and I wonder just how much we've screwed things up.

SG: I hope there's more light at the end of the tunnel for some other topics. How could health care fail again?

MM: It fails because the Democrats have a failure of their own will. They don't have the guts to stand up for what they believe in. Let me tell you something, if the Republicans were in charge and they had that many votes in Congress, they'd just jam it right through. They wouldn't give a damn but Democrats, I know what they're doing. They're trying to take the higher road but really, they're being bought and paid for by the same pharmaceutical and health insurance companies the Republicans are bought and paid for, so let's just be honest about it.

SG: How can we get anything done when every minor critic gets to kill any potential plan to fix things?

MM: Right, well, that's because the Democrats won't stand up. One guy can shut down the whole Senate now.

SG: Can't someone just say, "If you're in the health business, you have to cover everything. That's your business gamble."

MM: But then they wouldn't make any money.

SG: Exactly! If you want to be in the health business, you risk not making money.

MM: That's why there should be no profit making companies at the table when it comes to deciding on health care. You have to remove profit from it. You wouldn't turn our water department over to a profit making company. That would be crazy. We should be treating health care the same way. You don't expect the fire department to turn a profit. It's a necessary service. So is a doctor when you get sick. For crying out loud.

SG: Is the elephant in the room that it costs $100,000 for a life saving procedure, that's not a feasible procedure?

MM: That's one of the problems here is that there's so much profit involved, that's why we spend over $7,000 a year on the average American and their health care and the Canadians spend about $3500. They don't allow profit to enter in as much as we do here.

SG: So it doesn't' actually cost that much for these cutting edge procedures?

MM: No, it's a markup. Just like when you go in the store, everything there has been marked up at least 50% from what it actually cost.

SG: The way they sold that fear of socialism, are people happy enough when they can't see their doctor that they'll stick by that program?

MM: It's very easy to scare people and to use fear when you have an ignorant population. Fred, you have 40 million functional illiterates in this country, adults who cannot read and write above the fourth grade level. We have a level of ignorance and stupidity that is so incredible and when you keep people in the dark and you keep them stupid, it's easy to scare them. It's like a five-year-old. We're a nation of five-year-olds, five-year-olds afraid of the boogeyman in the closet. Cry, "Mommy, daddy, come here. There's a monster in the closet."

SG: Well, they sure did a great job ruining education.

MM: Yeah, that's part of it though, making sure you have a shitty education system enforces the level of ignorance.

SG: Hedges also brings up overpopulation, which is an important problem not being discussed. Is there a humane way to control or reduce our numbers?

MM: Well, yes. All the studies show that the more education a person has, the better their income in terms of being able to not live with the fear of doing without, the lower the birthrates. So when we make a more economically just world for people, and an educated world and especially women being educated throughout the world, when that happens you'll see the birthrate go down to something that's reasonable and won't kill the planet. I'll tell you right now, this planet cannot sustain nine billion people on it.

SG: This might not even be one of your pet issues, but What will it take to universally pass gay marriage?

MM: What it will take is for every gay and lesbian individual in this country to bravely come out of the closet, tell their families and their friends that they're gay and all they want in life is what everybody else wants. You know what? This is where the human part of this comes in because unless you're Dick Cheney, you really do want what's best for your child. You don't want your child discriminated against. You don't want your child living an unhappy life. I think that the advances that have been made to this point with gay rights has been because enough gay people have been brave enough to come out. So the more that that happens, the more that everybody realizes that there's someone gay someone in their family or extended family, it's very hard to hate when that thing you're supposed to hate is very close to you.

SG: Can that get through the fear? Homophobes are so scared of this, they don't even remember that people used to be afraid to let women vote or abolish slavery, but we changed that and it turned out okay.

MM: And we'll change this too. This too will get better.

Capitalism: A Love Story is available on DVD and Blu Ray on March 9.