The Big One

[Basstrap]

Man,
has anybody else here seen this movie or read Moore's book (downsize this!) upon which it is based?

If you haven't you SOOOOOOO need to go watch the movie.
it will open your eyes to the capitalist world and it is VERY VERY funny!

The most disturbing thing I saw was the part of corporate welfare. Not something you hear of a lot in media.

Billions of dollors go to successful corporations in a sort of welfare - a free cash donation really.
More money is spend on this corporate welfare in the States thn is spend on social assistance!! there's something wrong there.

I'm not saying this is just in the states, but this is wehre Moore did his book tour.

The main crux of the book centers on downsizing and how multi-million dollar corporations who are successful and making a lot of profit uproot and move somewhere else leaving hundereds of families without jobs.

There was one scene when he snuck a camera inside and asked a manager why they were moving.
(paraphrasing)

manager: We're making so much profit that it seems best to move and be more competitive.

Moore: So your saying that because the people are such good workers and they make you so successful that your going.

manager: yes

Moore: so if they had reached this profit years earlier and were 10 times more productive they would have been out of jobs even earlier?

manager: yes

There's lots of funny parts in the movie. He's always causing problems and pissing people off.

go see it!

[melon]

I'm not going to comment on Moore; I'm actually quite tired of writing on polarizing figures from either the left or the right.

What I do want to comment is on the issue of labor and business relations. The 1986 tax plan is what really messed it up. There used to be a business tax called the "Windfall Profits Tax." This tax was only assessed on businesses who reaped in aggregiously high profits; hence, if you had a bad year, you didn't get assessed the tax. What this tax encouraged was both reinvestment into the company and reinvestment into the labor force, which I find to be responsible business operation. After the 1986 tax plan, business began slashing wages and feeding all of its profits to stockholders. Hence, we have our trouble that we have today: businesses collapsing on stock market panics and wages that really haven't moved much since the 1980s. At the very least, wages are still lower when adjusted for inflation and in real figures, compared to before the 1986 tax plan.

I certainly wish we could live in the idyllic Reaganomic world, where everything is on an honor system, but even economists readily admit that we are all inherently greedy. I certainly think that the Windfall Profits Tax is a good idea to institute now, particularly since few have confidence in the stock market itself anymore, due to concerns over corporations lying about profits. But that's what you get with deregulation, folks.

Melon

[Lovey Dovey]

Oh, I thought this was gonna be about...something else....

You know, that major earthquake we're expecting in California??

[Basstrap]

Ok, we just watched the second half of the movie in Political Science today.

The most surprising thing I learned was that businesses like TWA and Eddie Bauers actually "employ" prison imates.
There are thousands of unemplyed who could really use those jobs and they have prison imates taking your reservations just so they could pay them peanuts and make millions of profit.

It was funny when Michael Moore was talking to one guy who just got out of prison and was explaining about how he had to work for TWA.

Ex-con: "I don't give a fuck about you, you, you, or you"
Caption:*call 1-800-555-4332 to make reservations to TWA today*

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Basstrap
The most surprising thing I learned was that businesses like TWA and Eddie Bauers actually "employ" prison imates.
There are thousands of unemplyed who could really use those jobs and they have prison imates taking your reservations just so they could pay them peanuts and make millions of profit.

common corporate refrain from this comment is that if shoppers can bargain shop for the best deal, why can't a business?
social consciousness is thrown out the window at the very extreme as maquiladora/sweat shop/export processing zone workers are employed at miniscule cost to the corp. execs and shareholders, alike, used to expect 100% profit on a product now demand 300-400% profit, so the absolute minimum input costs must be found, creating a bidding war by troubled nations as they continuosly sell out their citizens for lower and lower wages and standards.
the whole thing is out of control.

[Basstrap]

yeah, its just sad the way things are headed.
Everything is tipping to favour the big business and nobody cares about the workers.
If laying off 10,000 employees means you gain an extra million in profit than its worth it. Thats how severe the allocation of values is in capitalist countries; the top 5% own 40% of the wealth. Maybe thats an exaggeration but I'd say its not far off.

I swear the more politcial science I learn and the longer I'm in the damned history department the harder it is to stave off my desire to fuck capitalism and worship marx!

WORKERS UNITE!!