Michael And Me.

Anyone who goes to a Michael Moore movie expecting a logical argument will walk away disappointed. Moore is a populist, not an intellectual. He goes for the gut.

And in his latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, it works. Sometimes.

Capitalism has everything you'd expect from a Moore film. There's the ironic, '50s-era stock footage (more so than usual), Moore-on-a-mission stunts, honest Americans facing economic ruin, and a lesson about the evils of -- what else? -- capitalism.

To make the case that capitalism is the root of all evil, Moore presents a loosely connected set of emotional vignettes:

Families being forced out of their homes.

Airline pilots who have to work a second job to survive.

Companies taking secret life insurance policies out on their employees.

And so on.

Some of the things Moore shows us are troubling. But ultimately, Moore is kind of like a man who sees a house on fire and launches into a tirade on the evils of oxygen. It's sad that some people are losing so much. But everything they had in the first place was the result of -- *gasp!* -- capitalism.

And many of the things Moore complains about don't seem to have much to do with capitalism at all.

In the final portion of Capitalism, Moore lambasts the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions as corporate robbery, and marches to Wall St. demanding the American people's money back. Fair enough. But government handouts to failing businesses are hardly a product of pure capitalism.

Similarly, when Moore tells the story of a for-profit juvenile prison that rakes in the dough thanks to a couple of corrupt judges, the problem seems to lie with the dangerous collusion of business and government -- not laissez faire economic policies.

Michael Moore claims to be non-partisan, but conservatives hoping to see Obama get some comeuppance for his continued support of corporate welfare are left empty-handed.

Moore does go after some prominent Democrats, most notably Chris Dodd. But Obama largely gets a pass. Even when Moore rips apart Tim Geithner, he never mentions the man who appointed him.

And while Michael Moore shows footage of house Democrats -- including Dennis Kucinich -- boldly standing up to the first bailout bill, he ignores the fact that a wide majority of Republicans voted against the bailout.

And as always, Moore plays it loose with the facts. When Moore reveals that wages have remained steady since the '80s while productivity has shot upward, he concludes that Americans are being forced to work harder for the same amount of pay. While this may be true in some cases, it's pretty lazy to ignore a little something called the digital revolution that's been going on for the last few decades.

Interestingly enough, Capitalism has a strong religious message, unusual for a Moore film. Moore, a liberal Catholic, interviews several priests who have some harsh words for America's economic system, and mocks the idea that Jesus would support capitalism. To drive home the point, the movie's takeaway message is worded in distinctly moral terms: "capitalism is an evil, and you can't regulate evil."

Like all of Moore's films, Capitalism is cleverly crafted and entertaining. But your enjoyment of the film may hinge on your ability to temporarily shut down large portions of your brain.

Near the end of Capitalism, Moore shows footage of Katrina survivors stranded on the roofs of their houses, and tells the audience that this is what capitalism bring them.

Actually, that's what large hurricanes combined with bad engineering bring us. Common mistake.

The Visible Hand Strikes Again.

Once again, The Economist hits the nail on the head with a write-up of the now infamous "cash for clunkers" program:

Rebate schemes like this tend to encourage buyers to advance purchases that they would have made anyway, thus cannibalising future sales. The termination of a car-scrappage scheme in France in the 1990s led to sales plunging by 20%. Nor is it certain that the scheme provides a more general boost to the economy, as buyers may have been put off other purchases in order to afford a new vehicle.
...
The green benefits are also hotly contested. The scheme should help to make America’s car fleet slightly less fuel inefficient, but there are significant environmental costs in scrapping perfectly good cars and building new ones.

The American economy is an incredibly complicated machine. When the government decides to stick its greasy hands inside and fiddle around with the parts, bad things tend to happen. This isn't to say that government policy can't have positive effects -- but in almost every case, it comes at a price. Short-sighted policies that promise too-good-to-be-true benefits lose their shine when the consequences come a-knockin' on the public's door.

Right now, members of congress are considering a piece of legislation that would transform America's massive healthcare industry. The benefits are obvious: everyone gets healthcare coverage. But before trigger-happy reformers vote aye, they might want to dwell on the unintended consequences of their pet project. Yes, just about every modern country provides universal healthcare coverage. But a lot of those countries have to deal with huge doses of taxation, high levels of sustained unemployment, and a stagnant work force.

After considering the pros and cons, a lot of people may still support the legislation. The good of universal coverage may outweigh the associated evils.

But there are some things that no one can foresee. Our economy is based on billions of unpredictable transactions between individuals. If seemingly harmless programs like "cash for clunkers" can create unintended ripples in this economic ocean, what could happen when the government gives one of our largest industries an extreme makeover?

I'm really not sure. But you can bet it won't be all unicorns and rainbows.

Workers Of The World Unite! ... Please?

Leftists around the world were thrilled when the world economy came a-tumblin' down last year. Capitalism had failed! It was time for the people to arise, and create a new, better order, full of rainbows and the equitable distribution of income!

But when it came time for elections in Europe -- a stronghold of center-left politics -- things didn't work out quite as planned. In short, the socialists got pwned.

A new article from The Economist does a good job of examining this phenomenon:

With the exception of Greece, the European elections in June were a disaster for social democratic parties. From France to Austria, centre-leftists failed to harness dislike of conservative incumbents. There was a swing against ruling socialists from Bulgaria (where they were ousted from national power in July) to Britain (whose prime minister, Gordon Brown, looks irredeemably unpopular). In Spain supporters of the ruling socialists tried hard to convince people that they were as upset as anybody about unemployment of nearly 20%, but voters still nudged to the right.

Elsewhere in the world, the picture is more mixed. But in almost every democracy, politicians who style themselves progressive face a common set of problems, to do with shrinking treasuries, looming environmental challenges, general pessimism and the resurgence of nationalism.

But the situation is more complex than it seems. As the article notes, "conservative" politicians, including France's beloved Sarko, haven't hesitated to bash capitalism and institute massive government bailout programs.

American conservatives looking for a ray of hope would do well to remember that the left/right distinction has always been relative; the Democratic Party would be considered center-right by European standards.

Even so, Europe's shift to the right is a good reminder that triumphalists are lousy at predicting the future. Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority" was an illusion, and the shine is already wearing off Obama's magical presidency. Politically speaking, shift happens. In America, conservatives were in power when the economy took a dive, so they received a drubbing at the polls. But in countries where socialism held sway, leftists suffered a similar fate.

Some people vote according to unbending ideological principles. But the rest seem content to settle for voting the bums out, whoever the bums may be.

Obama: People Still Like Him.

Is the Obama brand tarnished? Not so, sayeth Ben Smith:

With Barack Obama’s victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press — as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his health czar went down in flames and his second pick for commerce secretary walked away — the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.

Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don’t back it up.

Obama’s approval rating remains well above 60 percent in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they’d seen no diminution in the president’s sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans’ dismal numbers.

Nothing surprising here. Obama has been president for less than a month; Americans are reserving judgement until they have something to judge. But if the economy is still in the tank a year from now, the numbers may be a bit different. Fair or not, the current President is always blamed when the money trees refuse to bear their succulent fruit.

But even if Obama can't resuscitate the GDP, we'll always have a larger national debt to look forward to. It's so beautiful, floating out there in space, cloaked in a shroud of incomprehensible majesty. I'm pretty sure it's already being worshipped by some celebrity-saturated cult in L.A.

It's The End Of The (Financial) World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine.

Stocks are falling.

Banks are failing.
The government is in crisis mode.

But despite the prevailing mood of doom and destruction, it isn't all bad.

Listening to the rhetoric being spouted by any given politician, you'd think that the entire financial disaster was engineered by a handful of greedy Wall Street executives. In reality, this is little more than a populist bedtime story. While it's true that Wall Street shoulders a certain amount of the blame, corporate greed is only part of the equation.

Banks were unwise to give out mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back -- but the same could be said of the people taking them. For decades, the American consumer has subscribed to the notion that something can be had for nothing. As far as notions go, that's a pretty bad one.

And following it has consequences.

We've seen our national savings rate dip into negative numbers. We've seen people drowning in debt to maintain their lifestyles. And now, we're seeing the financial sector crashing down under the weight of all the loans that people simply can't pay back.

Thanks to the greed of Wall Street and Main Street, our economy is feeling the squeeze. Millions of Americans will almost certainly suffer through financial hardship.

So what "isn't all bad" about this?

In short, the crisis gives our country a chance to transform itself. And I'm not speaking in purely political terms. The financial crisis should serve as a wake up call to people in every segment of society. In government, business, and at home, Americans have held a view of money that stands utterly detached from any sort of reality. Although the phrase has become something of a cliché, people have been "living beyond their means". Now that the bubble has finally burst, the economy has a chance to start over again. 

Painful? Yes.

But sometimes, you have to learn the hard way.