DealBook’s Interview With Michael Moore

Moore

Not many people can lay claim to attempting a “citizen’s arrest” of the nation’s banking bosses. But it’s par for the course for Michael Moore, the controversial film maker whose latest documentary on the financial crisis takes a harsh look at capitalism — and Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.

In “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which had its New York premiere this week, Mr. Moore contends that capitalism has failed to create the kind of just society the country’s founders envisioned, and that the big banks have essentially co-opted the government.

Mr. Moore spoke with DealBook yesterday about his film; below are edited and condensed excerpts from the discussion.

Q.

In your film you point out the deficiencies of capitalism. What economic system do you think is best and why?

A.

Well, we haven’t invented it yet. Here’s what I don’t think works: An economic system that was founded in the 16th century and another that was founded in the 19th century. I’m tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century, we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

Q.

Before you made the film you sent out a call to Wall Street professionals to be whistleblowers, but there didn’t seem to be any new information in the film which had not already been reported. Was Wall Street not very forthcoming?

A.

When I asked for the whistleblowers to come forward, I kid you not, I received 22,000 e-mails. Now, obviously not all 22,000 of them work on Wall Street. But I could have done four more movies on the information that was given to me or things that were said to me, but it didn’t really relate to the thrust of the story I was telling.

It isn’t so much about what’s new – I think a lot of people know that this is going on, but its more about doing the kind of follow-up that doesn’t happen in journalism these days. Part of my job is to read the paper, watch C-Span and show things that haven’t been shown or were buried.

Q.

In the film, you march up to the headquarters of nearly every major Wall Street bank and financial firms to make a “citizen’s arrest” of the chief executive. Do you really believe the chief executives of the major banks should be locked up?

A.

I wasn’t going to convict them. I just do what policemen do when you have a suspect, when you think something is amiss – the police have a right to bring you in. And that is what I would like to see happen.

Morgan Stanley actually called the police and I asked the officers to take over and handle the arrest for me – naturally, they refused.

Q.

What role do you think Goldman Sachs had in the financial crisis?

A.

It appears they have a lot to do with it – I don’t know and you don’t know, but I’m calling and other people are calling for an investigation of this.

The Justice Department needs to investigate how Goldman Sachs was able to steer things in such a manner through their former employees in the Bush administration, so that in the end Goldman’s competitors have disappeared and Goldman is left standing.

To allow for Goldman to essentially double-dip where they got their $10 billion in the TARP money but that they also got to collect another $10 billion in insurance money from A.I.G., which is essentially our TARP money – how did that happen?

Some people might say: “Well Goldman paid the money back – with interest.” They just posted a second quarter with record earnings. I don’t know if I am as smart as Goldman, but Cyrus, if you give me $20 billion today and I hang on to it for 9 months or so – I can see what I can do with it.

Q.

There is a scene in the film where you mention that Goldman Sachs employees were a big source of President Obama’s contributions during the last election cycle. Do you believe the President was wrong to take that money?

A.

I really see an audience of one for that scene (President Obama). I want him to know that we know that Goldman was his single-largest contributor and what he does with that is his choice – he can choose to side with them or with us.

Q.

It seems that a lot of the anger over the bailout and the crisis has eased as the markets have recovered. Are you concerned that the government will not step up and reform the financial system?

A.

First, the market recovery is a bit of an illusion because the other shoes haven’t dropped yet like the massive credit card debt that can never be repaid and the commercial real-estate bubble.

Of course they are not going to revamp the system. The banking industry and these financial institutions have been lobbying and spending millions of dollars in the last year to guarantee that no new regulations have been put in place.

Real change will only happen when the people demand it and the people are going to have to demand more than a few new rules at this point.

Q.

So how can the people ‘rise up’ in your view?

A.

By electing representatives that have this one piece in their platform: The removal of money from our political system. You literally have to take money out and publicly finance elections like other western democracies. When we remove money, our political leaders will listen to us and not Wall Street.

Q.

You equated the bank bailout to a heist in the film. What do you believe would have happened if the banks had not been bailed out?

A.

Well, it shouldn’t be an either or. What we should have done what we did in the 80s during the savings and loan crisis — the government should have taken receivership of these banks and financial institutions and sifted through who has to stay and who has to go. But what we did was write blank checks to everybody.

Q.

You mention in the film that the United States may have experienced a financial coup d’etat. What did you mean?

Wall Street, the banks, and corporate America, has been able to call the shots here. They control our members of Congress and they get what they want. I mean, 75 percent of this country wants universal health care, but it looks like we aren’t going to get it again — how does that happen? Well it happens when the health care industry spends a million dollars a day on lobbyists. That’s how it happens.

So until we get the money out of politics, the coup d’etat that has taken place by those with the money are really running the democracy.

Cyrus Sanati

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Michael Moore was asked:

“So how can the people ‘rise up’ in your view?”

And he responded:

By electing representatives that have this one piece in their platform: The removal of money from our political system. You literally have to take money out and publicly finance elections like other western democracies. When we remove money, our political leaders will listen to us and not Wall Street.”

It’s not just Wall Street MM. Unions are even larger contributors to public officials (and all one party). They bribe public officials as much as any other special interest. I agree with MM that removing money from our political system is a great idea, however, it’s not just Wall Street. When will Michael Moore make a mocumentary on union corruption and political bribery?

this guy is so dumb.
why don’t you make a system for the 21st century?

A big sad clown, uneducated, uninformed. A modern-day Harold Lloyd and a dunce. Fortunately he’s not taken seriously by anybody who has gotten past the 8th grade.

“citizen’s arrest” is just another way of saying look at me…when he comes up with solutions and acts on them let me know…

SLI, it’s a matter of perspective. For example, which investigation should yield more tax payer money being refunded: Acorn or KBR-Halliburton?

Note that I said “should”.

Sad Little Irir: Sources for your claim of unions contributing more to public officials than corporations? I’d love to see your source for that. And your assumption that union members are all of the same party is not only questionable, but it obscures my equally worthy claim that all corporate contributions represent the same economic outcomes: deregulation and corporate welfare, no matter what party benefits from the gifts. Given my assumption that corporations are more politically powerful than unions, you can see where we disagree.

At least we seem to agree that getting private $$ out of politics is an attractive solution to a lot of problems.

You can’t possibly be serious in comparing workers’ union money to multi-national corporate financial influence. Come on, get real!

The first poster is incorrect: unions are not larger contributors to political campaigns than individuals associated with corporations. The data is freely available from a number of sources (FEC and “opensecrets dot org” are good). Corporate affiliated individuals dwarf any other source of money in the election process. Yes, unions–like any complex bureaucracy–are riddled with graft and corruption, but unlike the large financial firms, unions have not undermined the integrity of our basic mechanism of exchange thereby endangering our survival as a nation.

I said it with “Roger & Me” and with every movie he’s released since – thank God for Michael Moore. In today’s era of a gutless, lapdog mainstream media – and the blogospheric blizzard of unsourced blather – thank God somebody like Moore is willing to take the blows he’s taken in order to try and bring controversial truth to light. He is everything every so-called journalist working in America today should aspire to, and I for one will always buy tickets to his films.

Sad Little Irir, if you can not see the difference in a Union of People, and a Union of Executives, you are part of the problem.

One question missing from this interview and all the recent interviews with Mr. Moore is: “How much did you personally make in fees and how much do you stand to profit from this picture?”

His hypocrisy is stupefying; he rails on a system of capitalism while bilking over $10M for making a documentary. As the highest paid documentarian in history, famous for underpaying artists and editors that make his films possible, he stands on pretty shaky ground when he goes after the foundations of capitalist society.

Oh, and guess where much of the debt financing for his backers’ The Weinstein Company comes from? You got it; Goldman Sachs.

As an ardent Times reader I had hoped for more thoughtful reporting on Moore’s film and not the pandering coverage he has received to date. Where’s Pauline Kael when you need her?

“I’d like to introduce democracy into the economy, not just getting to vote every 2 to 4 years; but real democracy, and a moral code – a moral core to our economy, where decisions have to be made for the common good.” – Michael Moore, KQED, Sept 2009

Michael Moore wants much more than removing money from politics; he wants nothing less than socialism in the United States. Please don’t support socialism with your hard earned money. Join us in boycotting Michael Moore.

//digg.com/d315Fv1

The Union “bribe” public officials.
Wall Street “contribute” public official.
Bribe = Illegal.
Contribution = legal.
That is the beauty of Sad Little Irir comments.
Mike Moore’ s statement ” … You literally have to take money out and publicly
finance election like other western democracies. When we remove money, our political leaders will listen to us and not Wall Street.” Bravo.

“Unions are even larger contributors to public officials (and all one party).”

Another example of the Limbaughization of political dialog. Here’s a factual rebuttal to “Misled Little Irir” using figures for the most recent reporting period (leading up to the 2010 elections)..

Check out //www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php

There you will see that the breakdown of all contributions Business $237,047,089; Labor $15,657,849 . For corp PACs, $65,989,486; labor PACs $15,588,494.

It’s true that all recent Labor contributions overwhelmingly favor Dems (93%) while all recent Corp donations go 39% to Reps and 61% to Dems. In actual $ terms, however, this works out to corp contribs to the GOP of $92,102,027 vs labor contribs to Dems of $14,597,799.

The fact that for the current period corp contribs to Dems are skewed decisively in favor of the Dems is nothing more than a reflection of the fact that they are “ins” for this cycle and therefore the party to buy off. (During the Bush years these figures were emphatically in the other direction. I know because I worked on Wall Street for most of those years)

The fact the corp contribs ovewhelmingly favor whoever is in power is in and of itself an argument for campaign finance reform. Indeed, the bulk of current corp contribs go to “blue dog” type Dems and Wall St defenders like Schumer and Dodd because in the current political environment they, not the Repubs, are the ones who can be depended upon to water down or defeat reforms of the type Moore and other progressives advocate.

To sum up, this labor-corp thing is nothing more than a smoke screen. Moore is saying that money, period, most be taken out of politics if we’re to have a level playing field. Not just corp money, not just labot money. All money! Publicly financed elections, get it?

But so long as the enemies of reform, the bulwarks of the status quo can stir fear if a labor-led “socialist takeover” in the minds of the “Misled Littles” of the world, they and their straw men can stave off necessary change.

Unions contribute perhaps 1/5th the money of corporate PACS. I don’t know where your information is coming from, Glen Beck? If unions controlled this country, we’d have far different policies, and more than 8 percent of the workforce would be employed by firms that are unionized.

The posts above who question, “if he’s so smart where’s his ideas?” kind of questions, I offer the following:

Michael Moore is not philosopher of social/economic/political issues. He is a muckraker, pure and simple. He finds what he believes to be wrong – social/economic/political injustices, and tries to blow them open and show them to the public at large. He is a reporter who often uses sensationalism to get his point across.

Being angry at him for not offering a new economic model is like being mad at the Times for reporting about the problems in the Middle East, and not coming up with a solution.

“Sad Little Irir”, enough about the unions please. Let’s tackle the big problem first. Which is the sellout of our government to corporations, having taken on monstrous proportions under the Reagan administration and its successors. Nothing is going to change in Washington until we ban corporate money (bribes by any other name), and make clear under law that corporations serve the public well-being and not vice versa. The root of the solution is to erase the cancerous legal fiction that a corporation is a person, who can legally buy (excuse me “donate to”) a congressman. Start locking up some CEOs for bribery, and the effect on our politics will be wondrous to behold.

Poster #3, I like Michael Moore, and I have more than 8 years of education, even if you don’t start counting til college.

Goldman Sachs isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to exist. It should be broken up like AT&T.

Ah yass, MM has raised a furor on both sides of the “aisle”, being both cursed and applauded. At least he has people considering his statements, whether they are strict dems or strict repubs (both of whom, of course are so totally stupid-plz excuse the teen language), becaue that leaves much room for the truly independent, who is truly an anathema for the pols!!

Oh yes people, this guy is a moron? Our system is perfect right? No need to fix anything.

Judgment day will arrive sooner than we think.

So, MM wants to induce “necessary change” into the system?

I think the system has worked pretty well. A vast majority of people in this country have overwhelming benefited from this system. If you don’t believe me, then why is our seemingly ghastly unemployment rate of 8-12% normal even a semi-socialist country like France (//www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=74).

As for the claim that investment banks are responsible for bankrupting our country: what about social security, the postal service and our potentially forthcoming health care system? At least the investment banks have or will pay back a majority of their borrowings.

Our country needs more capitalism, not less. Everyone, including investment banks, needs to be more responsible for their economic choices. Every country in the world realizes this and is moving towards more capitalism. By moving in the other direction, we are weakening our competitive position.

Michael Moore’s “Capitalism” Opens in Los Angeles: An Inconvenient Review
Michael Moore’s “Capitalism” Opens in Los Angeles: An Inconvenient Review

With his media mogul producer and capitalist-friendly marketing Moore is receiving “more” reviews than he bargained for.

Michael Moore’s new movie “Capitalism: A Love Story” is being criticized for using capitalism and the media to promote “anti-capitalism” ideals. Moore’s movie is being co-financed and distributed domestically by Overture Films, which is part of John Malone’s Liberty Media. Liberty, reports Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times,  also owns satellite broadcaster DirecTV, and recently took a stake in Sirius XM.

If the idea that Michael Moore has teamed up with a media magnate weren’t ironic enough, Malone’s company Sirius XM was the subject of the financial documentary “Stock Shock” which highlights the company as one of the most manipulated stocks in the market. Investors in Sirius XM lost over 95% of the value of their shares in the company when it nearly went bankrupt earlier this year due to alleged illegal naked short selling, and some contend, internal corporate greed. John Malone was touted as the satellite company’s white knight for saving it from ruin at the 11th hour with a loan of several hundred million dollars, but not everyone agrees.

“Stock Shock” interviewed disgruntled investors like Michael Hartleib, founder of SaveSirius.org, who insist that Malone virtually swindled the company away from shareholders when he was awarded a 40% stake in the billion dollar company for the last minute loan. Hartleib asks, “How was this management team able to steal forty percent of our company without we, the true owners of this company, having a vote or a seat at the table? How was Mr. Malone given forty percent of our company for free?” Many journalists are asking, “is this the producer Michael Moore hand picked?” Newsday’s John Anderson comments that Moore provides “enough convenient logic to bury the Federal Reserve.”

“Stock Shock”  is a new release on DVD and is available at Amazon.com or stockshockmovie.com.

PS – I forgot to mention FREDDIE MAC, FANNIE MAE and Medicare.

Moore is right. Wall street has taken over. It began in the late 19th century,
gained momentum in 1980,and reached fruitation in 2008.
However its not a facist type takeover, not yet anyway. Wait until they
bankrupt the middle class.

Caractacus & Calhouri,

You 2 are reading it wrong. I’m not comparing ALL corporations to unions in terms of donations (of course if you add up all corporations, they will come out on top). I’m comparing banks with unions. Now lets look at the #’s for 2010 courtesy of opensecrets.org.

Labor: $15,657,849
Securities/Investments: $14,877,301