"The One Percent" Documentary, By Jamie Johnson, J&J Pharma Heir

[appalachiablue]

- Trailer. This 80-minute documentary focuses on the growing "wealth gap" in America, as seen through the eyes of filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. (2006). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0819791/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Johnson, who cut his film teeth at NYU & made the Emmy®-nominated 2003 HBO documentary "Born Rich," here sets his sights on exploring the political, moral & emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film includes interviews with Nicole Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader and other luminaries.
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- Full Film -

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J&J Using A Bankruptcy Maneuver To Block Lawsuits Over Baby Powder Cancer Claims, NPR, Oct. 21, 2021. https://democraticunderground.com/10142816276

[BeckyDem]

1. Watch it!

K&R

[paleotn]

2. But, but, but....that's just jealousy towards the "makers"

Not makers, inheritors. I think Wall Street's character, Gordon Gecko put it best when it comes to inheritors and this was in the 80's. It's much worse now.

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit.

As for the "makers." The great, great grandfathers who started it all. Walmart is a good example. But so is Microsoft and Amazon, though they're not multi-generational yet. None of the founders had a particularly novel idea. Discount retail has been around for centuries. The late 90's was littered with e-retail start ups. During the infancy of PCs, MS-DOS and Windows had lots of competitors, many offering better products than Microsoft.

So was the key better management? Not really. Entrepreneurs are notoriously terrible managers. The skill sets are very different and only a tiny minority possess equal parts of both. For every Henry Ford, there's thousands of "idea guys" who couldn't effectively manage a lemonade stand. Some were lucky enough to hire folks early on who know how to run a company profitably. The vast majority were just lucky in that their version of an idea a lot of people had at roughly the same time actually caught on.

The second part of that is the penchant for nefarious, anti-competitive behavior. Something our society has dealt with effectively only in fits and starts and lets run rampant today. The US economy leans heavily towards the "free market" not the "fair market." Companies grow not just due to the attributes of their product, but how well they can hamstring and screw their competition. In fact, the later is more important than the former in many cases.

That's the "makers" our society tends to worship. For every one of them, there's 10 who had the same idea, worked just as hard, but didn't achieve nearly the success and many times failed completely. This is not a hit on innovation. Innovation is the golden egg of capitalism and vital to our civilization. Innovators should absolutely be rewarded for their contributions. But, they need to be viewed in a realistic framework. They're not gods and should never be allowed to fuck over their competitors. I believe in capitalism as the best of many flawed ways of running our economy. But I believe in heavily regulated capitalism that controls the worst of our angels. It's like fire. Controlled, it will keep you warm. Uncontrolled, it will burn down the whole house.

[erronis]

3. Wow. This is an excellent documentary. I'm in the middle of it but, just wow!

[erronis]

4. So many good scenes. The ones from Katrina are heart-wrenching.

[appalachiablue]

6. I was really impressed with the interviews

of the people featured and the fairly candid outlook of prominent individuals he gained access to for the film. Inclusion of his father added interest, same for the exclusive finance meeting and private Club Croquet game.

It's an eye opening and quite well done film. I wish more people would see it, it's online of course. I thought that the scene when Uncle Miltie began to get worked up during his meeting with young Jamie, it was one of the best in the film.

[erronis]

5. "If you're always hiding from the problems, you'll never find any solutions."

Hard to watch the dynamics between the father and son.

Obviously once the father had some scruples but was shown how to get rid of them.

Can't recommend more than once. Hope this catches fire!