E-mail a friendMichael Moore
airdate September 29, 2009
An Academy Award-winning filmmaker, author and activist, Michael Moore is one of America's most fearless political commentators. He became famous for his film Roger & Me, about the devastating effects of GM's downsizing on his Flint, MI hometown. Moore's documentaries have been the most financially successful in film history. After his Fahrenheit 9/11 won top prize at Cannes and set box-office records, he turned his attention to the health industry in SiCKO. He takes on Wall Street in his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story.
Filmmaker Michael Moore and Tavis discuss President Obama's performance thus far. (1:23)
Full interview (23:01)
Michael Moore
Tavis: Always pleased to welcome Michael Moore to this program. The Oscar-winning filmmaker has produced some of the most indelible documentary films of our generation - "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11," and most recently "Sicko."
His latest is called "Capitalism: A Love Story." Sounds oxymoronic. The movie opens in theaters nationwide on October 2nd. Here now, some scenes from "Capitalism: A Love Story."
[Clip]
Tavis: Ouch. (Laughs) Let's jump right into it - what is the price we pay for our love of capitalism?
Michael Moore: The price we pay is that we now live in a country where there's a foreclosure filing once every seven and a half seconds.
Tavis: Seconds.
Moore: Seconds. One out of every eight homes in this country right now are in delinquency or foreclosure. But it's not just the housing market. Because we've allowed the money to be redistributed to a very few people at the top, almost like a pyramid scheme, almost like a Ponzi scheme, where the few guys at the top, the richest 1 percent, Tavis, in this country, have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined - combined.
One percent, more than the 95 percent of us - absolutely insane. If we're talking about we love democracy and we love living in a country about equality and all this, where's the equality where the richest 1 percent own practically everything, call all the shots, and construct a country where we still have outrageous poverty rates, especially with kids, high school dropout rates in our cities - outrageous.
We have 40 million adults right now in this country who are considered functional illiterates, which means they can't read and write above a fourth grade level. When you create a society like this it's a recipe for disaster, and so I decided to make this movie and call it a love story because it's about the wealthy who love their money, except there's a twist in this movie.
They don't just love their money, they love our money now. They want our money, and they have - they've taken people's pension funds, they've taken people's 401ks, they've taken and taken and taken to the point where people are living now from paycheck to paycheck, or if they're doing okay, few people who are watching this right now can say with surety, "Oh, yes, the job I have right now? I'll have it next year."
I don't know, when I was a kid, no matter what kind of job you had - my dad worked on an assembly line in a factory, and my friend's dad was a clerk in a grocery store - you never, ever really had the feeling that jeez, I don't know if I'm going to be working in six months or a year. You knew that if you worked hard and the company prospered, you would prosper. That was the old equation, right? Now it's you work hard, the company prospers, and you lose your job.
Tavis: This is clearly an oversimplification, but let me ask it because you've got a two-hour movie that answers this. How did this happen? How did we get to this place where this 1 percent controls pretty much all the wealth?
Moore: It happened because we allowed, first of all, the people with the money to control our political process, and that's with both parties. They have bought these politicians and that's why they get their way. That's why the bailout took place, essentially, because when you look at the money that comes from Wall Street into our candidates, it's absolutely incredible, and you can see why they do their bidding.
We also got this way because when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and came in and said, "I'm going to trickle down the money to all you people who are the working class," too many people believed that. They actually believed that they were going to get a seat at the table with the rich man, and so people invented this thing called the 401k - in other words, invest your pension in the stock market.
When I was a kid - I don't know how old you are, but when I was a kid nobody had a credit card. I think the guy down the street had a Shell card for gas. (Laughter) My mom might have had a JC Penney card, but that was it. You weren't $6,000 in credit card debt. When I was of college age you didn't go to a private bank to get a student loan, you went to a thing called the financial aid office on the campus and there you got work study - maybe you had to work in the cafeteria or the library.
If they gave you a loan it was like a 1 percent loan, pay it back when you can, but it was to the college. And then after Reagan, it was like, no, let's put all this student loan stuff into private banks where you've got to go to the private bank and then you'll be in hock to the private bank for your student loan for the next 20 or 30 years.
A genius way, actually, to really keep the working people in line, because you don't want to lose your job, you don't want to buck the system too much because you won't have your money to pay off your student loan.
So these sorts of things started to happen in the '80s. That's how we got there and we let it happen. And I show this memo in the movie that Citibank wrote up about four or five years ago, where it was a private internal memo about how we're getting away with murder here and we're making all this money and the richest 1 percent are just kicking butt and everything.
And then at the end of the memo it says, "But the people may sooner or later figure out that they're not on the gravy train that we're on, because unfortunately our biggest enemy," we, Wall Street, "our biggest enemy is this one person, one vote thing, and there's only 1 percent of us and there's 99 percent of them, and we don't get to have more votes than they get. So literally, the 99 percent can enact a law to stop the 1 percent at any time they want."
Tavis: If I'm one of the 1 percent and I say to you, "Michael, you have the same 24 hours in the day that I have. Don't fault me or blame me for how I am more creatively or in a genius sort of way use my 24 hours. Don't be a hater, don't hate - congratulate. Don't hate, celebrate. I got something and this is America. You want something? Get off your behind and come up with a great idea, sell it to the people, and get rich like I did. Why are you mad at me?"
Moore: That sounds like the old America. That's not the way it is now. The 1 percent who have that - we used to make money, and the people who used to do well, they made their money because they invented something or they had a great idea or they worked really hard, and I wouldn't fault anybody who works hard to want to better themselves, to make money, open up a business, sell shoes, whatever.
We need that, obviously. That's not the kind of capitalism I'm talking about. I'm talking about a system now of legalized greed where these companies, especially the banks and the Wall Street firms, have taken the pension funds, have taken the money that average, everyday people have invested, and for the last 10 years or so have been playing around with it with these crazy schemes.
Derivatives, credit default swaps, all this stuff. They've gone insane with all these what they call complex financial instruments, exotic measures and all this. But it's absolutely crazy - and then they lost the money. Last year they lost the money and all of a sudden, crash.
And to allow a situation like that it's so dangerous for the rest of us when they say, "Well, this bank is too big to fail." Well, if it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist. We shouldn't allow anything that big.
So I'm not disparaging anybody for wanting to do well or do better, but I have to go back to the way I was raised, and I was raised in the Catholic church, and I remember what the nuns and the priests taught me. And they said that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us, and that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
And we're at a situation now where the pie on the table, there's one guy that comes in and says, "Nine of those slices are mine, and then the other nine of you, you have to fight over the last slice." There's something just inherently wrong and immoral about that. It's not democratic. If we say we believe in democracy, if we say we believe in Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist - all the great religions teach that that's wrong, for one guy to get nine slices of the pie and everybody else fight over the remaining slice.
Tavis: You talked about growing up in Flint. No matter where you grew up in America, if you were paying attention in history class - or I should say government class - you learned about this thing called oversight. You learned about it in government class, about oversight. What happened where oversight is concerned?
Part of the story that you see in the film - and if you read the papers you can pick this up - somebody was asleep at the wheel, so to speak. The SEC didn't do its job, Congress didn't do its job, the White House didn't do its job, the Treasury department didn't do its job. How did everybody miss all this?
Moore: It's worse than that. They weren't asleep at the wheel; they actually took the wheel off -
Tavis: They just took the wheel. (Laughter)
Moore: They took the wheel off, yes, because starting back at the end of the Clinton administration they passed a number of regulations or I should say deregulations to take away the rules. And then when George Bush - W. Bush - came into office, they got rid of everything else. And that's one of the big problems here is that they wanted to just let the banks and the Wall Street investment firms do whatever they want to do.
They weren't allowed to do certain things before, and now they could just go hog wild. And of course the theory was that let business work it out, because business will always be good for everybody else and it'll trickle down to the rest of us. So yes, the reason why you have to have regulations - look, we know this as human beings. We have our dark sides. Greed is one of those dark sides, and let me tell you - greed wasn't invented with capitalism, it's not an American thing, it's been around for thousands of years.
And just like other things about us, in order to sort of regulate ourselves so we'd behave decently with the other people we share the society with, we have certain restrictions that we put on ourselves. One of those, when it comes to greed, is this oversight that's gone.
Unfortunately, capitalism now has become a system that legalizes this greed, that actually says it's okay - it's okay for just a few people to run away with most of the money. We don't benefit from that. It's not - like you said, why disparage the guy that is part of the 1 percent? Well, him being part of the - there's only so much money in the economy.
If you allow just a few people to take 95 percent of it, what's left for the rest of us? What is left for the guy who's living in Detroit or Cleveland and he's got the next great idea, who's the next Henry Ford or the next Thomas Edison or the next guy who's going to invent the next Internet?
Where's the money available for him to get the credit to be able to start up a business to enact his idea? It doesn't exist because it's been taken from people who've not been making their money making things, they've made their money off the money, by investing the money, by playing with and moving around the money. I don't think that's healthy in a society like ours.
Tavis: Those persons who you, to your credit, mention in the film, in terms of taking on both parties - you said that here and it's in the film you're going after both parties for the way they let that wheel get stolen.
But to your earlier reference of these Clintonites who pushed this deregulation back during his administration, these are the same people that Obama rushed to bring to his side to run this situation now. Let's call the names - the Larry Summers of the world, the Tim Geithners of the world - I could do this all day.
Moore: Robert Rubin.
Tavis: We could spend the rest of this show running the names of the people who were connected to the Clinton administration who are now running things for Obama, and they've still got the - it's the same group of friends, and yet you're hopeful about what?
Moore: Well, I'm hopeful that President Obama has recognized that probably the people best to clean up the mess are the ones who created it.
Tavis: You honestly - you're a bright guy. You believe that?
Moore: I want to believe it. Listen, I -
Tavis: Is that blind naiveté?
Moore: Well, I don't think so. I may not be right on this. Listen, we just went through the worst eight years imaginable as far as I'm concerned and the day that President Obama was elected last November 4th, it was such an emotional day. I was just really beside myself with happiness and joy, and I realized that it wasn't going to be easy for him. That he was inheriting, essentially, a catastrophe.
Not just an economic catastrophe but an international catastrophe, three wars, et cetera, et cetera. You wouldn't wish this on anyone, really, and God bless him for wanting to attempt to do something about it.
But he has - it was funny, when he was running for office he wasn't the candidate of Wall Street. They were giving their money to McCain and to Hillary and some other people. When it looked like he might actually win, it's funny to look at the financial records. (Laughter) They just start writing checks to Obama.
Tavis: It shifted, yeah.
Moore: Oh, yeah, we like Obama. (Laughs) And eventually, actually, by the end of the election, Goldman-Sachs became President Obama's number one private contributor.
So he took their money and now he's only - we're only eight months into his administration, but we're going to see whether or not - are the decisions that he's going to make be in favor of Wall Street or in favor of the working people of this country?
I'm going to still side with the fact that he believes in the working people of this country are the top priority, and not Wall Street.
Tavis: Let me challenge that. I'm not challenging Obama.
Moore: No, that's okay.
Tavis: I'm not challenging Obama so much - maybe indirectly - as I am challenging your thesis here on two grounds. Number one, I can literally see this - I'm no creative force like Michael Moore but I can see you making parody of this in one of your films. I can see you listening to someone say what you say and then shooting to a scene of chickens guarding - you know. I can see it.
Moore: Well, I actually shot this scene for the movie. Seriously, I -
Tavis: You got the same people that are with Clinton are now with Obama, and you got them guarding the hen house.
Moore: Right, yeah. I actually shot a scene, it's not in the movie, but I interviewed a bank robber who is now hired by the big banks to advise them on how to prevent bank robberies. And who better to go to then a bank robber?
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)
Moore: So I say to Obama, who better to go to to fix this mess than the people who helped screw it up? Let's hope that's what they're doing. If I'm wrong, if this sort of essentially blind faith at this point, which I'm willing in these first months to give him - this guy's got enough people jumping all over him. We're not going to have universal healthcare as a result of a loud minority of angry people who already have healthcare screaming at him and calling him names because what does he want to do? He wants to make sure that everybody who gets sick could see a doctor.
Tavis: But it's not about - to my mind at least, Michael, it's not about casting aspersion on the president. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about holding the president accountable, not casting aspersion.
And if you look at what's been done already - the stimulus package? That was for Wall Street. So Wall Street gets the money? You've got people now saying this recession is over? Yeah, it's over on Wall Street, not on Main Street, not on the side street. I'm just asking you -
Moore: Yeah, but he said that, too. He said that a few weeks ago.
Tavis: But I'm asking you as a filmmaker, where do you see this - pardon the phrase - trickle-down of this stimulus to the weak working class? Where do you see that?
Moore: Well, we haven't seen it.
Tavis: Well, that's my point.
Moore: Okay, so I'm willing to say that some of the first decisions he made or ideas that he had didn't work. I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water at this point.
Tavis: Nor should you, exactly.
Moore: But talk to me a year from now, and if we're in this situation where essentially Rubin and Geithner and Summers have maneuvered this whole thing to enrich their friends on Wall Street - if that's why they're there, then -
Tavis: I'm saying there are signs of that already, Michael. That's why they're celebrating, jumping down on Wall Street right now. You ain't got to wait a year. Brother, that's happening right now.
Moore: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's hope President Obama's watching, because seriously, if that's the case - let's say you're right, if that's what's really possible -
Tavis: No, wait, hold on. It's not right because I say it's right. Read the - you read the papers like I do. They are celebrating on Wall Street right now because they're back into the profits.
Moore: Right, that's right.
Tavis: That's not me saying this. These are facts.
Moore: Right, and the working people are, again, experiencing a foreclosure every seven and a half seconds.
Tavis: Precisely.
Moore: So, President Obama, if you - where you? There. (Laughter) He's trying to get some sleep right now, but he's still watching us.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter)
Moore: If you're listening, we're with you. We need you on the side of the people. If you're not, then I'll come after you harder than I did George W. Bush. Trust that more than anything.
Tavis: That's all I'm talking about.
Moore: How's that?
Tavis: No, I'm just saying it's about accountability. I want him to be a great president. I believe he can be. But I believe like you believe that we're going to have to hold him accountable to these everyday people.
Moore: Let me tell you, it'll be so bad for all of the so many millions of people, I've never saw so many young people involved in the political system, get involved and be active. If he lets all those people down, that is going to do more damage to our democracy than anything we're talking about on this stage tonight, because if people check out - and they will check out. If they see that oh, Obama's just like all the rest, he's in cahoots with all them.
Tavis: Garden-variety politician.
Moore: Yeah, same old, trying to please this - bipartisan.
Tavis: You're right about that, but since you shot the film - you know this, because this is what you talk about in the film - with all due respect to President Obama, it's the people around him I'm worried about, the folk who are pulling the strings trying to hook their partners up. You don't believe that process has changed of people trying to hook their partners up.
Moore: But I don't think they're pulling the strings. I think he's the one pulling - he's the one in charge, he's the one pulling the strings. He's not W, where they just were shoving him around. This guy, he's a guy who's in charge, he's a take-charge guy, and frankly, right now I'm just going to go with this feeling that this guy loves basketball, he's a great basketball player, for an amateur, (laughter) and I think that he's been doing a lot of faking right and going left.
And I think the Republicans know that too and that's why they've been fighting him so hard, because they know in his heart of hearts this is a man that was raised by a single mother and grandparents who came out of nothing, and then when he got the good fortune to got Harvard, he leaves Harvard and does he go to Wall Street? Does he go to make big bucks in New York City?
No, he decides to go to the ghetto in Chicago and work with people. Oh, and by the way, he decides also you know what? My name is Barack, not Barry. And so from now on I'm going to be called Barack - Barack Hussein Obama. Not exactly the move of a guy who's thinking of being a politician, trying to please everybody. So clearly, his core -
Tavis: We agree. I think his instincts are right, there's no doubt about that. I want the guy to do well, as I said. I want him to succeed. I believe his instincts are right. I'm just asking you these questions about capitalism since you did the movie, as to whether or not we think that over these next four or maybe even eight years we really can turn this thing around.
Moore: Well, absolutely I think can turn it around, but only if - he has got to be the Franklin Roosevelt of the 21st century. He has to really - because if you study how Roosevelt did this, he came in and he said, "The hell with bipartisanship. The people, the country, elected me, 75 percent of the country right now wants universal healthcare. That's the way it is. I'm sorry, Republicans, but the people have said they want us in charge."
Tavis: You think he's moving in that direction?
Moore: I think so.
Tavis: Okay.
Moore: Too bad he had - again, to give the guy credit, he's a lot nicer guy than I am. (Laughter)
Tavis: I can't imagine that.
Moore: No, but I mean he spent the first months trying to hold out the olive branch to the other side. I don't think - if the election had gone the other way, do you think they would have been holding out the olive branch?
Tavis: I totally agree.
Moore: I don't think so.
Tavis: I totally agree, yeah.
Moore: So he's tried that, it hasn't work, and now he's got to come on like our Roosevelt. He's got to come on and fight for the people. I think he can do that. I think that's who he is at his core. He's got to tell the Rubins and the Geithners and the Summers, "I'm in charge and this is the way it's going to be. I'm not here to enrich your buddies on Wall Street. I've never lived my life that way and I'm not going to start living my life that way right now."
Tavis: Finally, you speak about this with such great passion, and it's clear in all your work. In your corpus of work it's clear that you care about everyday people, you care about these issues. I know at one point years ago you thought about going into the ministry.
Moore: Actually, I did. I went to the seminary.
Tavis: You went to seminary, in fact - you started seminary, yeah.
Moore: Yeah.
Tavis: Is this your ministry, the work that you do as a documentarian? I see it that way. I see it as your ministry.
Moore: The church of cinema? (Laughter)
Tavis: I like that, I like that.
Moore: Well, listen - I feel very blessed and very privileged to be able to do what I do. Having just a high school education and coming out of Flint, Michigan, things aren't stacked this way for someone from the working class to be able to have this voice, to have this forum, to be sitting here talking to you.
And I feel, as I'm sitting in this chair, as I'm making these movies, that it's not just me sitting here. That I'm here representing a lot of people who aren't on the "Tavis Smiley Show" or aren't on "Jay Leno" or they're not getting to make a movie or whatever, and that I'm essentially their stand-in, and I'm here to say what they would like somebody to say and they never get to hear it.
And in all the discussions this past year of what's gone wrong with the crash on Wall Street or whatever, we should do this and we should do that, I have not heard one person say, "Maybe the problem, maybe the problem at the core of this is the very system itself - that capitalism is not a democratic system, it's not a moral, a Christian, system, it doesn't aspire to any of the values that we hold. Why the heck are we still going down this road?"
And I want to challenge - I want to throw that out there. If no one else is going to say it, then I come from Flint, Michigan and I'm here to say it. And I'm here to say that there's something evil about this system and as a person who loves this country, as a person who still tries to act on my faith, that I want an economy that you and I have a say in.
And right now, Tavis, you and I and the people watching this show tonight, they have no say at all in how this economy's run, and that's not called a democracy then. I love living in a democracy, and that's the way I want it to be.
Tavis: And you ain't going nowhere.
Moore: And no, I am not going anywhere.
Tavis: And neither am I. (Laughter) I've never quite thought of Michael Moore as a stand-in, given the icon that he is fast becoming, but if he is, he is the best stand-in in this business.
Michael Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story," in a theater near you October 2nd. Michael, great work, glad to have you on.
Moore: Thank you so much, Tavis. Thank you so much.
Tavis: It's good to see you, my friend.
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