'I do not believe that the rich should be able to buy the government...'
By
Kent Jones
-
Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:18 PM EST
While Star Wars guru
George Lucas was promoting his new movie
Red Tails, Charlie Rose got Lucas to offer his opinions about politics
on CBS This Morning.
Bottom line: 99 percent? Jedi. One percent? Vader.
George Lucas: Billionaire down on capitalism
George Lucas Video
(CBS News)
Famed director George Lucas is best known for "Star Wars," which wowed audiences with, among other things, its special effects. But, in a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose, Lucas says his latest movie, "Red Tails," about the Tuskegee Airmen, takes digital filmmaking to a new level. He also offers his views on capitalism, its impact on the U.S. system of government, and the democratization moviemaking is undergoing. And he names the person he considers the best moviemaker around. The transcript of the interview follows.
CHARLIE ROSE: From George Lucas, a new movie, "Red Tails." Welcome.
GEORGE LUCAS: Thank you. Great to be here.
ROSE: My impression is that this is a movie you've been waiting to make.
LUCAS: I've been working on this movie for 23 years.
ROSE: That's waiting to make.
LUCAS: Definitely a labor of love. But I've been working on it for 23 years. It's not that I've been sort of waiting to do it. I heard this story from an aviation and photographer friend of mine 23 years ago. And I said, "This is a fantastic story -- that needs to be told." And more importantly for me is that it sounds like a great, inspirational movie for teenagers.
Comments:
Charlie James 47472188: "Isn't it amazing that so many members of the 1% who got there because of actual work or creative effort (i.e., Lucas, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates) - as opposed to playing with money like the Masters of the Universe on Wall St. (i.e., Romney, Gingrich) who got us into this mess - understand the basic inquality that us ordinary proles have to deal with in our lives."
Cova:
"Some members of the 1% got there because of actual work or creative effort", others did not.
If you took all the money from all the rich it would only pay off even a small fraction of the federal debt. Since the rich own that debt you would be basically taking the money from them and giving it right back to them. Reversing that, one can see the rich got rich from the debt, which is confirmed by anyone who knows recent economic history. The financial service industry leverages debt in circles for fees and grow very wealthy for that service- until the leveraging
deleverages and the financiers blow up. Then they get bailed out, to the tune of trillions in tax cut handouts and quantitative easing.
Again, "members of the 1% who got there because of actual work or creative effort" sell a service or product so depend on a market for that service or product. If those providers pay tax that goes to public benefits then the market increases and the providers get more back than they pay in tax. If they get tax cuts paid for with cuts in public services then the market shrinks and the providers lose more than they save in tax cuts.
Fifteen trillion in debt carried on treasury bonds bought by the rich with their tax cut savings. That does NOT "make jobs", it is the opposite, all that debt sucked up private capital that could have gone to making jobs."
Darth Vader he understands..
