sturbed. i can't go back. hey. ye. [ laughs ]

tavis: gd evening from los angeles. i'm tavismiley. tonight conversatio with oscar-winning filmmaker michael moore. heakes a critical look at capitasm in ameca. "capitalm: a love story" opens in theaters around theountry on october 2. we're glad youould join us. chael moore coming up right now. there are so many things th wal-mart is loing forward to dog, like helping people live better, but mostlye're looking forwd to helping build stronger communities and relationships because wi your help, e best is yet to me. nationwide insurance proudl supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwi insurance working to irove financial litecy and the economic powerment that comes with it. ♪ nationwide is on ur side ♪ >> and by contributis to your s station from viewers like you. thank you. [caponing made possible by kcet public television]

tavis: always pased to welco michael moore to this pgram. he has had some of the most inlible films of our generation. "roger me," "fahrenheit 9/11" and "sicko." his latest is "pitalism: a love story." here areome scenes from "capitism: a love story." >> by spendin just a few million dollars to buy congress, wall street was given billions. >>he motion is adopted >> the film director is filmi me right now. >> how did this collapse happen? >> i gotome fday. everything was fine. i called bk after m plane

landed in indianand all of a sudd we soo this crisis on our hands. >> there has to be a rebellion betwn the people who hav nothing and the pele who have it all. >> everything wa being haned by the secreta. this is an ielligence operation. >> whe is our money? >> i don't kw. tavi ouch. let's jump right into it. what is the price we pay for our lo of capitalm? >>he price we pay is that w now live in a country where there is a foreclosu filing once every.5 seconds vis: secds? seconds. onout of every eight homes in this coury now aren delinquency or foreclosure. its not just the houng market. because we hav allowed the money to be redistributed to veryew people at the top. almost like a pyramid schem

a ponzscheme. the w guys at the top have more financial wealth than bottom 95% combine combined. 1%. more than the 95%. absolutely insane. we're talking abt we love livingn a democracy. we love living in a country wh equality. where is the equaly where the richt 1% own practically everything. ca all the shots. and consuct a coury where we still have outraous poverty rate especially with kids. high school dropout rates in ou cities, outrageous. weave 40 million adults right now in this countrwho are consider functional illirates, which means they cannot read orrite above the foth grade level. when you create a society like this, it is recipe for disaer. i decided make this movie and call it a love story becau it is about the wealthy whoove their money.

except there is a twist inhis movie. they don't just love their money. they love our monenow. theyant our money. they have take people's pension funds and people 401 (k)'s and ha taken and taken to the point where people e living payeck to paycheck. or if theare dng ok,few people are watching thisow can say withssurity, oh, yes, the job i have now, i' have it next yea i don't know. when i was a kid, no mattewhat kind of joyou had. my dad worke on an assembly line in a factory. myriend's dad was a clerk in a grocery store. you never hathe feeling that i don't know if i'm going to b working in six mths or a year. you knew if yoworked hard the company would prper and you woulprosper. that was old equion, right? now it is y work hard, the

company ospers and you lose your job. tavis: this islearly an oversilification. let me askou because you have a twoour movie that answers this. hodid this happen? w did we get to this point where this 1% contro pretty much allhe wealth? >>t happened because we allow the people wh the money to corol the political process. thats with both parties. they have bought these politicians. th's why they get their way. th's why the bailout took place. seshed because when you look at the money tha comes from walstreet to our caidates, it is absolutely incredible. you can see why they do thr bidding. you ow, we also got this way because when rond reagan was elected in 1980 and came innd said i'm going trick down the money to all of you people who e the working class. too ma people believed that. they invented this thingalled the 401k).

invest you pension in the stock market. when air force kid i don't know how you a but when i was a kid, nobody had a cret card. i ink the guy down seet had a shell card for gas. [laughter] my mom might have had a jcpney rd but that was it. you were not $6,000 in credit card debt. when i was of colge age, you didn't go to a private bank to get a student loan. you went to the financial aid office on theampus and you got work-study and had to wk in the ceteria or the library and you got a loan and pay it back whenou can. then after reagan it is le no, let'put all this student loan stuff into the prite banks d then you'l be in hoc tohe private bank for the next 20-30 years. aenius way to keep theorking people in ne because you d't want to lo your job and buck

the system too much because you won't the noun pay off your studt loan. ese kind of things started t happen in the 1980's. that'sow we got there. i shothis mome that citbank wrote up fr or five years ago, a prate mem how we' getting away wh murder here and we're king all this money and the richest 1% are just kicking butt and at the e of the memot says but the people mayooner or later figure out that they are n on the gravyrain that we're on. d because unfortunately our bigges enemy, we, wall stre, our biggest enemy i this one person-one vote thing. ere is only 1% of us and 99% of them and we don't get to he more voteshan they get. litter think 99% cannact a law to sto the 99% at any time. tas: if i'm one othe 1 and

i say you have theame 24 hours in aay that i hav don fat me for how i have used my 24 hrs. don't with b a hater. don't hate. congratulate. don't hate. celebre. i got something it is america. geoff your behind and ce up with a great ideand sell it to people. why are you mad at m >> that is like t old america. the 1% that had that. we used to make mon. the people who used too wel they made their money because grt idea or worked really har and wouldn' fault anybody who workhard to want to better themselves toake mey, open up a business,ell shoes whatever we need that obviously. at is not the kind of capitalism i'm talking about. m talking about system o legalized eed where these companies,specially the banks and the wall seet firms have taken e pension funds and

taken the money that arage, every day people have inscrested and for the last 20 years or so have been playing aroundith it with all othese schemes, edit default sps with all o these complex financial instruments, exoti measuresnd allhis. it is absolely crazy andhen they lost the money. st year theyost the money and allf a sudden, crash. to have situation lik that, it is so dangeus for the rest of us when they say this bank i too big toail. if it is too big to fail, i shouldn't be allowed to exist. i have to go back to the way i was raised and i was raised in thcatholic church and i remember whathe nuns andhe priests taught me. ey said we would be judgedy how wereat least among us and the first should b lastnd the

lasthould be first. the pie on the tab andhis guy comes in and says nine of thos slices are mine and the other ni of you hav to fig over the last slice. the is something wrong with that. if we s we believe in democrac or christian or buddhist, all of the great religions ach that that is wrong r oneuy to getine slices of the pipe and everybody else to talk about -- of the pie an everybody else to get the one slice. tavi you grew up in michigan. yolearned about this thing called oversight. you learned about i in government cla, about oversight. what happened where overght is ncerned? part of e store that you see the film and in the pers you can ping thi up. somebody was -- pick this up. somebody was asleep at t eel. congress didt do it job the white house didn't dit

job. e treasury department didn't dot job. how did they ms all of this. >> they were n aeep at the whl. they justook wheel off. [laughter] starting back the end of the clinton administrion, they passed a number of regulations or i should say deregar deregulations toake away the rule and thenheneorge bush came into office they got rid of everytng else. that is one of the big problems here they wanted let the banks and the ll street investment firms do whatever they wanted to do. now thecan just go hog wild. of crse t theory was let business work itutecause siness will be good for everybody else a will tckle down to the re of us. soes, the reasonhy you have toave regulatn. wenow as han beings we have our dark sides. greed one of those dark sides. greed wast iventsed with capitalism. it is not an american tng. it has been around for thousands

of years. have to sort of regulate ourselfs so we behe with the people we shareociety wit weave restricons that we put ourselves. one of them wheit comes to greed is this oversight. unfortunely capitalism has become a systethat legalized greed. it says it is o for jusa few people t run away with most of the money. we don't benef from that. it is not -- you said why -- part othe 1%. there is only so much money in e economy. if you want jt a feweople to take 95% of it, wt is left for the st of us? what is left for the g who is living in detroit or clevela and has got the next idea? whis the next henry ford or omas edson or the guy who is going to instrent next internet? it doesn't est because it h

been take fromeople who have not been makg their money making things. th have made their money off the money by investing the none. by playing around with moving around the money. i don'think that is healthy in a society like ours. tavis: those perns who you to yo credit mention in theilms in terms of taking on both parties. you're gng after borte parties by the way theyet the wheel get stole bun to your earlier -- sten but to your earlier remps of the clintton ithes. these are the same peopl that obama rushed to hiside. larry summers. tim geiner. i can do this allay. we can snd the rest of the show running the names o of the people connected tothe clinton ministration who are running ings for obama. you're hopeful aut what? >> i'm hopul that president obama has recognized that probab the people best to

clean up the mes are the ones who eated it. tavis: you're a bright guy. yobelieve tha >> i want to believe it. i may not be right on thi listen. just went through the worst eight years imaginable as far as i'm concerned. and the day that president obama wa elected, last november 4, it was such an emoonal day. i was just really beside myself with happiness and joy and i realized it was nogoing to be easy for him. he wasnheriting a catastrophe. not just an economic catastrophe, tee war etc., etc. you wouldn't wishhisn anyone. god bless hifor wanting to attempt to do something aut it. but it was funny. when he was running for office, he wasn't the candidatef wall street. they were giving their mey to mccain andillary and some other people. wh it looked like he might

actually win, it is funny to look at the finaial records. they just start writing ches to obama. oh, yeah,e like obama and entually by the end of the electi, goldmanachs became presidt obama's number one private contribut. so he took their mon and now you know, we're only eight nths into his administration but we'reoing to se whether or not the decisio he makes are in favor of wall stre or th working peoplof this country. i'm going still side with the fact that he believes thathe working peoe in this cotry are theop priority. tavis: let me cllenge it. m challenging you thesis here on two grounds i can se ts, i'm no creative force like micel moore but i can see u making parody of this in one your films. shooting to a ene of chickens guarding, you know, -- i can see

-- i actually shot this sce for the movie. seriously. tavis: the same peophat are with clinton and are now with obama and they have r-guarding the hen house. >> it is not in the movie i interviewed a bank robber who was red by the biganks to advise them how the avoidank robries. i said to obama,ho better to go to than to fixhis mess than e people who screwed it up. blind faithwhich i'm willing to ge him. we're going thave universal health care as a result of a loud minority ofngry pple wholready have health care screaming at him and calling him names because whatoes he want to do? he wts to make sure that evybody who gets sick can see a doctor tavis: it is not aboutasting

purgs on theresident. that is not what we're talng out here. we're talking aboutolding the president accountable. if you look a what has been done already, t stimulus package, wall stre gets the money. you got peopleow saying this recession is over. yeah, its over on wall stet. not on main street. not the side street. >> h said tha too. tavis: i asking you as a filmmaker,here do you see trice downf this stimus to the weak working class? ere do you see that? >>e haven't seen that. vis: that is my point. >> so i' willing so is y that some of the rst decisions that he made or ideas that he had didn't work. i'm not going to throw by out with t bathwater. talko me a year from now and maneered this whole thing to enrich the friends on wall stre, if that is why they are there? tavis: i'm saying there e sounds of thatlready.

that's why they are cebrating, jumping do on wall street right now. we ain't got to wait a yr. that's what's ppening now >> well, l's hope president obama is watching. seriously. if that is the case, let say you're right. if that's what's really -- tavis:o, it is not right because i say it is right. you read the papers like i do. they are celebrating owall street rightow because they e back into the profits. it is not me saying it. it is the facts. >>ight. anthe working people are yet experiencing a forecsure every 7 1/2 conds. tavis: precily. >> and so presint obama -- where e you? the. he is trying tget some sleep ght now. if you're listening, we'reith you. you know, we need you the sidef the people and if you're not then i'll comefter you harder tn i did george w. bush. trust that more than anything. hois that? tavis: just saying it is about accountability. i want him to be a gat president. i believe he c be but i

believe le you believe we have to holhim accountable. it will be so bad. soany millions of people. i never saw so many young people involv in the political system, getting involved and being active a if he lets all of those pple down, that is going to do more dage to o democracy than athing we're talking about on this stage tonight because - becau if people check out and they will check out if thesee that obama is just like allhe rest. he is in ca hts with all of them trying to -- bipartisan. is like -- tavis: you're right about tt. but since you shot the film, you know ts because this is what you talkbout in the film. with all due respect to president obama, iis the ople around him i'm wored about. you don't believe that process has changed of pple trying t hook their partners up. >> i don't think ty are the onesulling the strings. he is the e pulling the strings. he is not w where they are

shoving him arnd. this is a guy o is a take charge guy andrankly right now i'm st going to go with this feelinthat this guy lov basketball. he's a great basketball player for an amateur. and i think that h has been doing a loof fakingight and ing left and i think the republicans know tt too and that's why ty have have been fighting him so hd because they know in his heartf heart this is a manhat was raised b a single motr and graparents who came out of nhing and when he got the good fortune to go to harvd he decides to go the ghetto in chico and workith ople. by the wayhe decided to also, you ow what? myame is barack. not barry. from now on i'm goi to be called bark obama. not a guy thinkg of being a potician trying please erybody. tavis: we agree. i think his instincts are right.

i believe they a right. i'just asking the questions about citalism as to whether or not we think that overhese next four or maybe eight yrs we really c turn this thing arnd. >> absoluteli think we can turn itround but only he has got to be the franklin rooseve of the 21s century. if you study how roovelt did thishe camin and said the hell with biptisan. th people in thi country elected me. 70% of the people want health care. that it, sorry, republicans. tavis: youhink he is moving in that direction? >> think so. to give the guy credit, he is a lot niceruy than aam. tas: imagine that. >> trying to hold out to ove brancho the other side. if the eleion had gone the other way to you think they would ha been holding o to olive bran? i don't think so.

he has tried that. it hasn't worked. he has to come on like our roosevelt and fight the people. i think he can d that. i think that is who he is at h core and he h to tl rubens and e exciterin and is summers. i've nev lived my lifeike that and i'm not gng to start now. tas: you speak about this with such greatassion. it is clearn your -- in all your wor it iclear that you care about everyday people. yocare about these issues. i kw atne point years ago you thoug about going into the ministry. >> did. tas: is this your -- is this yourinistry, the work tt you do? this docentary? i see it this w. >> the church ofinema? i like tt. well, listen, i feel very blessed anvery praved to be

able to do wh -- andery ivileged to be able to do wh i do. coming out of flint, michigan. things are not staed this way for someone fm the working class to be ab to have this voice and have this fum to be sitting here talking to u. i feel as i have been sitting in is chair and makg tse movies it is not just me sitting here. i'm hereepresenting a lot of people who are not on the tav smiley show or jay leno and are not getting to make a movie and i'm essentially their sta-in an i'm here to say what they would like somebodyo say and they never get to hear it. of all t discussns this past year, what has gone wrong wit the crash of wall street, we should do this and that. i have not heardne person say maybe the problem at e core of th is the very system itsel that the citalism is not a democric system. it isot a moral chrisan system. it is not -- it doesn't aspe to any of the values th we hold. why the hk are we still going

do this roa i want to challenge i wanto throw itp. no one elss going to say it that i come from flint, michigan. i'm here to say it. i'm re toay there is sothing evil about ts system and as a person who loves this country, aa personho still tries to act on myaith,hat i'm -- i want an ecomy that you d i have say in. right now, tavis, you and i a the people watch this show have no say in how this democracy is run d that is not calle a democracy then. tavis: you're not goin anywhere. no, m not. tavis: neither am i. the icon that he is fast becoming. he is the best stand-in this this business. michael moe's new film, "capitalm: a love story" in a theater near youctober 2. great work. glad to he you on. >> thank you. tavis: you can access our pod

cast at pbs.org. thanks for watching. and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information today's show, visit tavis smey at pbs.o. >> hi, i'mavis smiley. jo me next time for a convertion with tom ridge. that's next time we'll see you th. >> there are so many tngs wal-mart is lookinforward to doing, like helping peop live better. but mostly we're loong forward to helping bui stronger commities and relatiships. beuse with your help, the best is y to come. >> natioide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. tavis and natiwide insurance, workg to improve financial literacy and the enomic empowerment that comes wh it.

♪ nationwide on your side ♪ and byontributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> we are pb