A Tale of Two Moores

I just finished watching Michael Moore's Larry King interview. Wow, what a hypocrite! as usual Larry tossed him some softballs and fawned over him like he was the next Francis Ford Coppola

One of his first movies was Roger and Me. In that movie he lambasted General Motors for closing plants, now he blasts them for taking corporate welfare. Imagine how much quicker they would have gone bankrupt had they not made some hard choices (in hindsight the choices were not nearly hard enough).

Once again he bashed the rich (odd since he qualifies as being rich). He made a point that after you make a hundred thousand dollars you no longer pay the 7 percent social security tax. No one said he couldn't pay that extra tax himself if he wanted too. Plus, he clearly doesn't understand the social security system is an insurance policy. we pay our premiums while we work and get the money back when we retire. And while the "rich" max out the tax on their earnings, they also get a much smaller social security check as a percentage of what they paid in, than the "non-rich"

A caller asked him what he made and how he "shared his wealth" with the less fortunate. He hemmed and hawed and gave a half assed answer about buying land and not developing it to keep it environmentally clean...in my world that's called real estate speculation.

He made a point that the richest 1% own more than the other 99% of the population (actually I think that number is one of those pull a number out of the air. How could you verify that). I remember when the homeless situation was the cause Du jour. Someone said a homeless person dies every 6 seconds in America. That became an accepted number. I did the math, and in one year there would have been no homeless people left to die! I think the richest 1% number is like that. Someone pulled a number out of their ass, it sounded good (great sound bites), and it became an accepted number

Almost all of the rich people I know worked their butt off to get the money they have (40 hours a week was unheard of, more like 70-80). They took risks, they saved an scrimped in the beginning, they invested in education both formal and informal. They paid off their credit cards each month, they didn't buy a big screen TV until their old TV actually died.. They bought used cars and drove them till the wheels fell off. They did the opposite of what most non-rich people do.

Do we really want to discourage hard work? Opportunity is what America offers to people.

Admittedly I have never liked Michael Moore. I like him less every time he releases a "documentary". Documentary implies you are documenting something. He does not document, he dramatizes, and that's "OK". The problem is that since he has control over what makes it to the screen, we never see when anyone who has a good answer puts him in his place.

Capitalism is not perfect, but it is better than any other system out there. Certainly better than socialism which has failed everywhere it has been tried. China is just becoming an economic force, and it is no coincidence that they have adopted some capitalist ideals. If this country is so bad, why does he stay? he certainly has the means to move to any country.

I want my kids to have the opportunity to achieve things based on hard work and merit. The idea that we should share the wealth with those "less fortunate" is a great idea, the problem is that very few people are truly "less fortunate". "Less fortunate" has become the way of describing less motivated, less educated, and less disciplined. Is that what we want to reward?