The movie may be a silly farce about New York cops who stumble upon a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme that threatens to defraud billions from city workers. But buried in the comedy is a serious point about what really constitutes grand theft these days. In essence, Adam McKay used the film's end credits to a point to lambaste corporate business, bonus packages and the TARP ponzi scheme.
The closing PowerPoint-like presentation is full of fun infographics and serious statistics outlining just how much Wall Street and corporate leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of American taxpayers. Check it out:
As pointed out by moviefone blog,
it's a fascinating sequence, both from a design perspective and from
the unlikely prospect of seeing a major corporation (in this case,
Sony) release a mass-entertainment movie that also wants to educate
moviegoers about the legalized wealth-grab that's benefiting major
corporations -- and seems to essentially equate the T.A.R.P. Bailout
with little more than a massive ponzi scheme.
The figures cited in the sequence, for example, note the following:
The figures cited in the sequence, for example, note the following:
- that the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) bailout cost every person in America enough to take a trip around the world
-
that after the bailout, some $1.2 billion in taxpayer money went to pay
the bonuses of just 73 AIG execs, while Goldman Sachs got a huge tax
break that saw its tax rate drop from 34 percent to 1 percent
-
that the average CEO earned about eight times the salary of his average
employee a century ago, but earns more than 300 times his average
employee's wages now
- that the typical American 401(k) retirement account has lost nearly half its value over the last five years
- that New York cops may earn a maximum pension of about $48,000, while the average retiring CEO reaps benefits of about $83.6 million.
1 comment:
Most of the data from the screen credits is absolutely wrong. Google AIG and find out the federal government MADE more than $20 billion from its investment. The feds also made a profit by backing GM, and TARP cost the Treasury very little while saving the American economy from the 2002 Recession. Finally the corporate retirement figures were also wrong. The reason why there were no citations given for the “facts” is clear—they weren’t “facts”.
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