Amoeba Music

"A guerrilla war is an intimate affair, fought not merely with weapons but fought in the minds of the men in the villages and in the hills, fought by the spirit and policy of those who run the local government."
--W.W. Rostow, address to the first graduating class at the U.S. Army Warfare School, Fort Bragg, June 1961

This documentary should be seen by everyone.

In my opinion, it is one of the best documentaries to expose the roots behind the global economic crisis of 2008. It should be seen, analyzed, and discussed by as many people as possible. While I don’t agree with some of the conclusions made in the film—for example, minimizing the structural crisis inherent within capitalism while overemphasizing the lack of government financial regulations as a major source of the crisis—it convincingly demonstrates the real-life horror when the Milton Friedmans of the world take over: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the rest. One only needs to look at Wisconsin right now to see this at work.

Having won an Oscar for Best Documentary this year, Charles Ferguson’s film builds and yet departs from previous documentaries on the topic: Casino Jack and the United States of Money (directed by Alex Gibney, 2010) and Collapse (directed by Chris Smith, 2010).

There is so much to say about Inside Job. However, for me, the most interesting part of the film is the section where Ferguson challenges some of the professors involved in the “inside job” that created the global financial meltdown at a cost over $20 trillion, resulted in millions losing their jobs, homes, etc. He interviews people like Professor Frederic Mishkin at Columbia Business School, and its Dean, Glenn Hubbard; Martin Feldstein, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and many more. (Larry Summers and Laura Tyson both declined to be interviewed; how I would have loved to seen that interview!) These are the intellectual architects following the neoliberalist tradition of W.W. Rostow, many of whom are busily working similar inside jobs in the Obama administration. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Below are some links that might connect your local prof’s—and their “technical expertise”—with specific corporate interests. Maybe you all can interview them and make your own film.

Analysis Group

LECG

Compass Lexecon

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Inside Job won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.