FMN

Friday Movie Night - Flying Cheap

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

You may not connect airline safety with globalization, labor arbitrage and offshore outsourcing, but....they are. The more corporations squeeze the more workers are less skilled and the more corners are cut. Why do a good job when the only thing a corporations sees is a $ sign tattooed on your forehead? Even worse how can one do a good job when corporations won't pay for the training and conditions required to do so?

With that, we bring you Frontline's Flying Cheap.

Friday Movie Night - 25 Million Pounds

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

25 Million Pounds is an Adam Curtis documentary on Nick Leeson and the collapse of Barings Bank. This happened in 1995 where one rogue trader, Nick Leeson, through futures trading, brought down the entire bank. Think about this and then Enron, WorldCom, Dot Con and now our current debacle and may I suggest all simply get over their Conservative/Liberal/Tea Party/Netroots/Progressive/Populist/GOP/Dem/Green/Contitution/Capitalism/Socialism/Libertarianism divide, all join forces and demand we get real financial reform? We've gone from one rogue trader to as an entire global sector....rogue trading as general practice. Enjoy.

Friday Movie Night - The World According to Monsanto

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

I was reminded of Monsanto again when I came across this this article putting Monsanto, once again, as one of the least ethical corporations of the world. (Oh yeah, ignore the list, any technical professional knows IBM has no ethics and either does Intel, so if that's the best....we're in big trouble!)

Friday Movie Night - Simon Johnson & Select Bill Moyer's Interviews

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

This week isn't a full bore film but a series of interviews, with most, save one, from Bill Moyer's Journal.

Simon Johnson

First up in this interview with Simon Johnson saying the financial crisis is just beginning. The Big 6 banks' balance sheet is now equal to 60% of GDP and Johnson believes because of the carry trade and reckless Zombie banks who now have cheap money to dump into emerging markets.

 

 

Friday Movie Night - The American Ruling Class

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

This night's film is by request. It's a dramatic-documentary-musical on class warfare. Here is a synopsis and the wikipedia article. Happy New Year and Enjoy!

The American Ruling Class

Christmas Movie Marathon - The Age of Uncertainty

hot buttered popcorn It's Christmas, along with Friday Night Videos! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

This week is a marathon, in honor of Christmas day.

Economist or more social scientist, John Kenneth Galbraith, wrote and presented an economic series in 1977, The Age of Uncertainty. Galbraith was kind of a dinosaur by 1977, with Milton Friedman, Thatcherism and Reagan taking power of the political economy. Now that we are suffering through the consequences of unbridled corporate driven (written) policies, it might be nice to go back memory lane and revist Galbraith's view of of economic history.

The series has 15 parts and the 12 which overview economic history are in this post. Happy Holidays.

Friday Movie Night - China vs. the U.S.: The Battle for Oil

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Taking a break from the never ending frustration of corruption in U.S. politics and obtaining real financial reform, let's move to a currently low demand commodity, oil. This CBC documentary, from 2007, explores China's new high oil demand. China's economy and especially it's industrial output surged 19.2% yr/yr, so one can be rest assured oil soaring prices and global demand eventually will return.

Friday Movie Night -Manufacturing a Better Future for America

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Since hearing how putting in some insulation or yet more teachers (read voters) and pickin' up trash is magically going to generate 10.9 million jobs (the number needed to get back to pre-recession employment levels), I thought this talk by the Alliance for American Manufacturing on how to rebuild the U.S. economy was in order. They have an excellent plan for infrastructure projects which would generate GDP, add to the national economy, over the long term, in addition to providing Americans with high skills jobs.

Manufacturing a Better Future for America

Friday Movie Night - Frontline - The Card Game

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Frontline has done it again with another great documentary. The Card Game, perfect for Black Friday, brings us up to date on lobbyists efforts to stop a Consumer Financial Production Agency and also overviews the credit card companies' role in the financial crisis. Lowell Bergman produced this documentary. He also made The History of the Credit Card.

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