Capitalism: A Love Story Page #8

Man:
lt takes the money

out of the equation.

Moore:
By taking the money

out of the equation

so that they can call the shots,

they end up making more money.

Cool, huh?

And how patriotic

that they want to extend

their love of American democracy

to their job.

Just imagine if the place

where you worked

was run by you

and your fellow workers.

You probably wouldn't

lay off your coworkers

to increase the value

of your stock, would you?

Or give yourself

a pay raise

while making your coworkers

take a pay cut.

Man:

We don't really do that here.

You really can't because everyone else

would be looking at you

saying, ''Why is this guy

so fricking greedy?''

You know,

it would be too obvious.

The bottom line is you've

got plenty of people

who roll up their sleeves

every day and go to work.

But if there's someone

way up there on the chain

that collects all the extra money,

that's not fair.

Moore:

Huh, fairness in the workplace--

what a novel idea.

Out in California,

there's a bread factory

where workers make thousands

of loaves of bread every day

Man:

The more hours you work towards

the benefit

of the co-op,

the more you share

in the profits.

Man #2:

The workers are happy here.

No big ls, little yous.

Everyone's the same.

Me as the CEO,

l get the same share

that anybody else does.

And that has proven

to be very lucrative

for us as workers.

Moore:
Assembly-line workers here

earn over $65,000 a year,

more than

three times the pay

for a starting pilot

at American Eagle.

Man:
l'm just hoping

that people take notice

of this type

of organizational activity

and start considering it

as an alternative.

Why do you want

to get rich?

How many cars do

you really need in life?

Moore:
Clearly, he's not a car guy,

but that's okay.

His bread factory and hundreds of other

worker-owned businesses

are proof that people aren't always

motivated by profit.

( fanfare )

Announcer:

An historic victory over a dread disease.

Moore:
lnstead of using his genius

to make a ton of money,

Dr. Jonas Salk spent

all of his time

putting monkey kidneys

in a blender

trying to find a cure

for polio.

And when he did,

he decided to give it away for free.

This man could have been rich

many times over

had he sold his vaccine

to a pharmaceutical company.

But he thought

his talents should be used

for the greater good.

And the decent salary

he made as a doctor

and a research professor

was enough for him to live

a comfortable life.

Who owns the patent

on this vaccine?

Well, the people,

l would say.

There is no patent.

Would you patent the sun?

Moore:
Yes, we've come a long way

since the days of Dr. Salk.

Because today our best minds

are used for something else.

Where do we send our top

math and science people?

Where do we send our top

math and science people?

lnto finance.

They don't go into

science in America.

They go to Wall Street.

Moore:
Today's students,

unlike in Dr. Salk's time,

can graduate from college

with a student loan debt

of up to $100,000 or more.

These students are then

beholden to the banks

for the next 20 years.

And the best way for them

to pay off these banks

is to go to work for them

instead of working

for the common good.

Black:
We've taken people that could

be enormously productive--

just what we're short of

in America--

and we take them and we

put them in an activity

that isn't simply less

productive,

but where they're

actually destructive;

where actually every day they work,

they make the world worse.

Moore:
So what exactly were the top

students from Harvard

and other schools

working on these days?

Derivatives... derivatives...

derivatives... derivatives...

Credit default swaps.

l can't make any sense

out of this.

l might as well quit.

Moore:

That's exactly how l felt

when l started hearing

these new terms.

So l went down to the New York Stock

Exchange to get some answers.

Sir, can you explain

derivatives to me?

Can anybody explain

derivatives or credit default swaps?

Can someone explain

to me what these are?

Sir, can you tell me what

a credit default swap is?

Can you explain

a derivative to me?

Can you tell me

what a derivative is?

- Nobody'll talk to me.

- l'm just a blue-collar guy.

l can see that.

Hey.

- l'm looking for some advice.

- Yeah, good.

You guys got any

advice for me here?

A derivative?

Credit default swap?

( sighs )

Moore:

l did find one guy on Wall Street

who wasn't a film critic.

Marcus Haupt is an lvy League

educated engineer

who was a vice president

of Lehman Brothers

and spent 15 years

on Wall Street

creating what they call

complex financial instruments.

What is a derivative?

A derivative

is a secondary bet

on an underlying product.

So you may have a stock

and you have an option on that stock.

And that option on that stock

allows you the privilege

but not the obligation

to buy or sell.

How should we put this?

You are allowed to make a decision

of whether or not you want to ultimately

take that exposure.

Let me explain it another way.

The derivative's price

is based on the price

of something else.

lt's kind of like

a second-degree equation.

lf you think of,

let's say...

um, maybe l should go back.

Let me start this over again.

Let's go back here.

Moore:

l was lost.

Maybe there's someone

at Harvard University

who could explain it to me.

Yeah, the-- the-- the--

the-- the-- the--

the buyer--

so the seller holds the loan

and it might default.

And they sell off--

somebody-- somebody else--

Sorry, let me just back up.

l apologize.

These are pretty exotic.

Moore:

Derivatives are nothing more

than complicated

betting schemes.

Here's what the math equation

of one looks like.

Can't figure it out?

That's okay.

You're not supposed to.

They've made them

purposely confusing

so they can get away

with murder.

Let's say you're a lawyer

and you're coming in

and you're from the government

and you're trying to evaluate

if these things

violate the tax code or not.

lf you can figure out

what they're doing,

most likely that Wall Street

firm will offer you a job.

Could l go to Wall Street

and just ask them

to set up a derivative

on anything?

Yes.

Believe me,

if it's out there

there's a derivative on it.

Moore:

So this is what Wall Street has come to--

an insane casino.

We've allowed them

to bet on anything,

including our family home.

Reporter #1 :
...the most powerful central

banker of the 20th century.

Reporter #2:

Greenspan has become an economic icon.

Reporter #3:
Alan Greenspan says

the economy is hunky-dory.

Reporter #4:
Greenspan gone wild.

lt's like ''Girls Gone Wild.''

What do Mick Jagger

and Alan Greenspan have in common?

Alan Greenspan,

who at that moment in time

was surely thought to be

the smartest man

who had walked the face

of the earth,

he starts using a phrase,

''tap your home equity,''

--that Americans can tap

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