Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
TRN: To Save The Revolution
TRN | Cairo Protests "To Save The Revolution" | Jihan Hafiz | 21 Nov 2011 |
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
NOVA scienceNOW S4 E1
NOVA【新星】| ScienceNow | Season 4, Episode 1 | yk : 56 : yk |
Diamond Factory / Anthrax Investigation / Auto-Tune / Luis Von Ahn | Jun 30, 2009
Diamond Factory / Anthrax Investigation / Auto-Tune / Luis Von Ahn | Jun 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
NOVA scienceNOW S4 E2
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
TED: Calls 4 a Moral Operating System
Damon Horowitz | Calls For a "Moral Operating System" | Jun 2011 |
TED: Fighting Viruses, Defending the Net
Mikko Hypponen | Fighting Viruses, Defending the Net | Jul 2011 |
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
GoldMoney: James G. Rickards
James Turk: I'm James Turk. I'm a director of the GoldMoney Foundation. I'm here today with Jim Rickards, Senior Managing Director of Tangent Capital. Jim, a pleasure to speak with you.
Jim Rickards: Thank you.
James: We're here at the GATA Conference. There's a news announcement just out that the European Central Bank is intervening in the market to buy Italian bonds. What's your reaction?
Jim: It's really, I call it sequential hostage taking by the markets. We saw it starting in Greece, and then Ireland, and Portugal, and Italy. The problem for Europe, every time they bailout one of these economies or come up with some arrangement, or bond exchange, or extended maturity, there are different techniques for doing it, but every time they put out one fire they assume that the whole thing is over.
That they've sent a message to the markets that they're going to do this. They're going to keep the euro together and prop up these sovereign borrowers, and so the market should relax. But the markets don't relax. What they do is they say, "Well thank you very much for buying our Greek bonds. Now we're going to up the ante. We're going to attack Italy, and force you to buy our Italian bonds."
I think what's going on, James, is that the markets are basically trying to force the sovereigns to lift their positions. Obviously they take a loss but if it's 70 or 80 cents on the dollar, that's a lot better than what the market might bear, which might be down to 50 or even 40 cents on the dollar.
It's as if the markets and the banks are forcing the governments to lift their positions one by one. What's going to happen in the end game is that the ECB and the European Stabilization Fund are going to own all the sovereign bonds in Europe.
They will owe themselves money, and then it's not clear where it goes from there.
You either unload that on the taxpayers directly, or you inflate the currency and in effect steal from your own citizens. It's going to have a bad ending, but it will play out over years.
James: What is it that the politicians don't recognize that the market recognizes? Are they just being poorly advised, or do they have something in their mind that is taking them in a direction completely opposite of what the market's looking at?
Jim: It's a really good question. I think it's a number of factors. Some of it's just wishful thinking. What does it take to be a successful politician? Probably not the same thing it takes to be a Ph.D. economist or a capital markets expert.
So they get into these positions and don't really have any background in economics, necessarily. Some of them do, of course, but not a lot of them. Then they get advisors, but the advisors sort of adhere to the conventional wisdom.
Then there's sort of short termism, "Well, just get me through the next election cycle. I don't really care that much about what's going to happen in five years to 10 years." Then there's some wishful thinking, just hoping for the best without really being rigorous or analytical about that.
There are a number of factors that come into play, but I think you're right, that what's not happening is people are not confronting the problem candidly, honestly, the way they should. Perhaps some of those who are, are not willing to talk about it. Certainly our central bankers are not going to come out and say, "Well sorry. The country's broke." That's the reality in some of these cases.
James: How did the European Central Bank become a hostage of politicians? Because the EU rules were set up that it was going to be independent like the Bundesbank, and that the euro would not be involved with political influence. It would be managed like the Deutsche Mark. The euro is obviously being politically influenced, and the ECB is being, I think, politically influenced as well by politicians. How did this evolve?
Jim: Again, a good question. I think there are two answers to it. One goes back 60 years which is, the euro has always been primarily a political project. It is an economic project. It's a monetary project, of course, but it's always been a political project.
It's been about avoiding war in Europe. I mean, you take the long view. Go back to the Counter Reformation in the mid 16th century, you had a bloody Counter Reformation.
You had the Napoleonic Wars, the wars of Louis XIV, the Seven Years War, the Franco Prussian War, World War I, World War II, the Holocaust. By the time European civilization got to the late forties and the early fifties, they were literally exhausted.
They had been fighting for 400 years. So they say, "This is crazy. It's just going to happen again, so we have to find some way to prevent it."
Their theory was economic integration would be the antidote to political disintegration and warfare.
That's the big picture view of Europe, starting with France and Germany as the core and extending outward from there. That's one aspect to it.
So there's a very strong historical and political dimension to this that leaders do not want the euro to fall apart.
Of course it would make sense for Greece to leave the euro, go back to the Drachma, devalue their currency.
I remember going to Greece decades ago, and I couldn't spend $100 a day. I'd stay in the best hotel, eat in great restaurants, take taxis, go shopping, and I couldn't spend $100 a day. That's always been Greece's solution, encourage tourism, encourage exports, et cetera. Well, they can't do that anymore.
So there's some logic to leaving the euro, but Europe does not want them to. They don't want anyone to leave because they've accomplished some of their goals.
The other aspect of it really is more purely economic. Germany gets enormous advantage from being part of the euro, because in effect the rest of Europe is not competitive with Germany. Germany has always been able to export very heavily even in a strong currency environment. You go back to the Deutsche Mark in the '60s, and the '70s, and the '80s.
The Deutsche Mark went up significantly against the dollar, and yet Germany was still an export powerhouse because they're efficient, because of their technology, because labor and business management work together.
They have an ability to power through an appreciating currency. The rest of Europe doesn't, but that's OK with Germany because they have captive markets.
Italy's not going to start a company like Siemens. Greece is not going to start an aircraft company. They sort of have the best of both worlds.
I think for political and economic reasons Germany's willing to subsidize Europe and does not want the euro to break up.
James: I agree about the economic integration, and I agree that one of the objectives has been to prevent war and everybody lives happily together. Economic integration is a key element to that, because everyone raises their standards of living, the way the market works, by interchanging, creating opportunities for commerce.
But there's another element to it as well. A good evidence of that is the way the Bundesbank was created by the Allies after the Second World War.
They made it completely politically independent from the government, because both the World Wars were financed by money printing by the German Central Bank.
The best way to avoid a third World War is to make the Bundesbank completely independent. So it was until 2000. That's one of the reasons why the Deutsche Mark had a pretty good record over that period of time.
Despite that, and despite the EU rules, we're going back to the situation now where the ECB is under control of politicians, which is exactly the opposite of the way the Bundesbank was run. And is now also against logic in terms of keeping politicians away from the printing press because they're ultimately going to destroy the currency by doing crazy things like buying bonds of Greece.
Jim: Right. There's a very interesting dynamic going on in the ECB right now. I agree, James, with your big picture analysis, but remember as Jean Claude Trichet leaves October 30th and Mario Draghi comes in as the new head of the ECB. Trichet is really a short timer at this point. He's only got three months left. He's got a very good track record so far despite the difficulties.
He's not going to want to go out on an inflationary note. He's not going to cut interest rates. He's not going to print a lot of money. He's going to hold the line. He'll leave with his reputation intact for being your classic old school central banker.
So the political pressure you're talking about, and you're right, there is that kind of political pressure, it's all going to fall on Mario Draghi, and we'll see how he does.
I don't know whether the Italian French thing makes a difference, but he's certainly handpicked. He's going to be the recipient of all the political pressure you're talking about.
Now, there is another element in place, very significant. It just happened, which is of course that it's very obvious from the start that Europe had, or at least the members of the euro system, had a unified monetary policy but they had all these diverse fiscal policies.
Greece and some of these other countries, Ireland, et cetera got themselves in a lot of trouble. My analogy is to the United States where we have one Federal Reserve and one Treasury. The Federal Reserve sets monetary policy and the Treasury, along with the Congress and the White House obviously, take our fiscal policy and do all the borrowing.
You've never had a euro Treasury. I think today we do. It just happened in the past month that the ESF, that's the European Stability Fund that was set up, it looks like a sort of a special service bailout mechanism.
It's not called the European Treasury, but that's what it is.
You have a European treasury run by Germany for the first time. Germany's going to dictate fiscal policy to the rest of Europe.I call this the Financial Fourth Reich. People get upset when you use a phrase like the Fourth Reich, but I say, "Well remember the First Reich, which was Charlemagne and by extension the Holy Roman Empire."
Germany has conquered Europe financially without a shot being fired. It's something they've always aspired to.
This is the flipside of the bailout. Greece right now likes the bailout, because the austerity is not going to be as bad as it was, the bond market is not going to collapse, the Greek banking system is not going to collapse.
All those things were in play and now they've been taken off the table because those funds are going are going to use European credit at three or four percent to finance Greece. Maybe they'll charge Greece five percent, but they're not going to charge Greece 20 percent which is what the market was going to charge them.
So they've been able to extend the European credit to Greece, but the other side of that is over time they're going to dictate fiscal policy to the Greeks.
They're going to say, "You need to prioritize this. You need to sell this. You need to take a hard line with these unions. Don't start an aircraft company. Don't do certain things." And that's all going to be dictated by Germany. It was not democratic. Nobody voted on it, but that's where we are. That's going to extend through all of Europe.
So I think the big news, that's happened very recently, is that the new improved version of the ESFS is, in effect, a German controlled European treasury.
James: So you think the euro's going to survive by implication, actually?
Jim: I do. I think it's going to survive, and I'm very bullish on the euro for a number of reasons, notwithstanding all the sovereign debt crises that we're all very well aware of. A couple of reasons, number one the one I just mentioned, which is that they now are going to have a unified coordinated fiscal policy through this ESFS.
Number two, it's never been economically driven. It's been politically driven and the political dynamic hasn't changed.
Number three is gold. The euro system has more gold than the United States. We have our 8,133 tons. The euro system has over 10,000 tons. So they've got a backstop for their currency that China, Japan, UK, Brazil, Russia, and other countries don't have.
I think they don't want to go to gold, and they'll only do it as a last resort, but the gold is there. They do have something behind their currency.
James: Well, they have 10,000 tons of gold and gold receivables. The central banks don't actually report how much they have in the vault and how much they have out on loan.
Jim: Right.
James: So we really don't know how much of that is really there and intact. Just like in the United States where there's no independent third party audit of the gold, to my knowledge, with the exception of a couple of European countries like Switzerland, there is no independent verification of how much gold really exists.
Jim: Right. I'm all for transparency. I'm all for independent audits. I think those audits should take place. I think that those statements should be released. They should come from independent parties. I'm all in favor of that. Having said that, I have absolutely no reason to believe that the gold is not there. This notion that it's Tungsten bars, or it's . . .
James: No, I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about gold being loaned out, melted down into jewelry and sold to women in India.
Jim: That's not the way the gold loan market works. The way it works is that, so I'm a depository. I'm Fort Knox, from West Point, or I'm the ECB, or I've got some gold. You're a bank, you're some party and you want to transact the market. I lend you the gold, but it's a paper transaction.
In other words, I give you title to the gold. I now take a first perfected security interest in it. I charge you some money. I charge you rent in effect so I'm getting a little bit of income on it. But the gold doesn't actually go anywhere.
James: Yeah, that's one element of the gold lending market, but then another element is where it's actually nonphysical bars that are brought into the market, and then they're sold, re fabricated into other things. As long as central banks report gold and gold receivables , and even the U.S. government now is talking about gold swaps on its official statements.
Jim: Correct, correct.
James: We just don't know how much gold is really there. I guess just coming back to the main point is that even talking about gold, are you seeing some kind of euro gold link at some future date to try to establish confidence in the euro?
Jim: Absolutely. I've said all along that the first major currency to go to gold backing will be the only currency that anybody wants. If the euro . . . It will move to gold. The only question in my mind is how.
Will it be thoughtful? Will it be researched? Will it be studied? Will it be bipartisan in the case of the United States, the way we got to the euro? Or will it be chaotic and messy and sloppy and emergency decrees because people have lost faith in the paper money?
To me, either one of those outcomes is possible. Maybe the chaotic outcome is even slightly more like than not. Either way you'll end at gold, because the paper system is clearly not sustainable. You're not going to be able to . . . There's no feasible combination of growth in taxes that's going to pay off the debt. It can't be done because the minute you start to raise taxes more to get revenue, you hurt growth.
If you don't raise taxes you've got these deficits, but at the same time, what are the drivers of growth?
The consumers are indebted. Who's going to invest if the consumer's not there to buy the output? Government spending has hit the wall.
As we've seen in the deficits, the only debate in the United States, there's no appetite for more government spending. There's no appetite for more quantitative easing. They might do it, but the political bar there is extremely high.
So what are you left with? The only thing you're left with is net exports. How do you generate net exports? You trash your currency.
How long can you trash your currency before people lose confidence in it completely? We're in a full scale currency war. That's what's going on right now. I talked to people in Zurich this morning and they said, "How long do you think the appreciation of the Swiss Franc can go on?" I said, "It's going to go on indefinitely because there's nothing to change the dynamic." The US doesn't want to take the dollar down 10 percent or 20 percent. They want to take it down 40 percent or 50 percent.
That's what it will take to get Americans to stay home, make it too expensive to go to Europe, increase sales of Boeing aircraft and IBM services, et cetera.
James: But the dollar is the world's reserve currency. The US government has a tacit responsibility to the rest of the world to maintain a currency that preserves its purchasing power. So to incur that kind of a drop in the purchasing power of the dollar from inflation or whatever means they use, you're basically having a ripple effect throughout the globe.
Jim: I agree with that completely. I should be clear, James, I'm not advocating these policies. I'm just telling you, this . . .
James: That's the way it's going to play out.
Jim: I'm not a politician. I'm an analyst. My job is to look at the dynamics, look at the indications and warnings, and call it like I see it. I'm actually an advocate of a strong dollar. I would say that if we had a strong dollar policy, and better economic policies, and stronger growth we probably would not have to go back to the gold standard.
But because we're trying to trash the currency, and because we're hurting the world, at some point people will lose confidence and you'll be forced to do it, one way or the other. So at least it's a good thing that we have the gold.
James: Just to get back to the euro, one more thing before I go into other areas. You drew the comparison between the euro and the dollar, the European Union and the United States. One of the obvious differences, of course, is the US has a common heritage, common language, et cetera. And a constitutional framework in which states have certain rights and the Federal government has certain rights.
You're lacking some of those elements in the European Union. Is that going to be an impediment to actually coming about to any kind of a position where the euro survives and we have a lot of different sovereigns and a lot of different politicians in different parts of the world?
Jim: We are lacking some of the elements, but not all of them. It is true that Europe is more diverse culturally than the United States. But although that's probably changing. Look at the Hispanic influence in the United States and other immigrant groups from time to time. So the U.S. has got its own diversity, but you're right. It doesn't have the same political diversity of Europe.
That's precisely the point. It was the political and cultural diversity of Europe that gave rise to war after war after war, century after century that they want to overcome. So how do you overcome that?
You do it through institutions. In Brussels and in the European Union and the European Parliament, they have built these institutions.
Now, it's sort of a sovereignty balance. Here's national sovereignty and here's European sovereignty. What's been going on over the last 20 years and is accelerating is that national sovereignty is declining and European sovereignty is going up.
We saw that with this new ESFS, where Greece and Italy and Ireland and Spain and Portugal have given up some of their fiscal sovereignty to this new fund which is run by Germany. But it's a European institution.
My view is I think that in Brussels they're not entirely unhappy with the euro sovereign debt crisis because the debt crisis . . . Remember Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's first chief of staff, said "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
I think we're seeing something similar in Europe. I think Brussels is saying, "We've got a good euro sovereign debt crisis here. What an opportunity to expand our euro sovereignty."
James: Maybe Brussels is happy, but what about the French farmer, or the Greek middle class, or the German taxpayer who is underwriting a lot of this stuff? How far can they go before they get a popular revolt?
Jim: It's interesting. You've got three different cases. I think the ones that are closest to revolt are probably the Greek middle class because they're going to suffer the austerity, the cuts in benefits, the higher taxes, the more rigorous tax collection, decline in exports from a strong euro. They're going to suffer the most.
The French farmer is very heavily subsidized under the common agricultural programs, so even with Europe, even with expanded European sovereignty, I don't see anybody messing with the farmers. The French farmers are a classic case, but you've got Spanish farmers, Netherland farmers, and German farmers, et cetera.
We say in the United States Social Security and Medicare are the untouchable third rails of politics. Well in Europe, agricultural policy is the untouchable third rail. Now you go to Germany, they're actually doing fine. As I said, they're an export powerhouse even in a strong currency environment.
The problem with the currency wars, of course, is that not everyone can devaluate at the same time. You have to take turns.
This happened in the '20s and '30s. France devalued in 1924. England devalued in 1931. The United States devalued in 1933. And then it was France's turn again in 1936. So you had these sequential what are called "beggar thy neighbor devaluations".
The same thing's going on today. The U.S. is trying to devalue, so who's losing the currency wars? The euro's been fairly strong, to a lot of people's surprise.
Brazilian real, we don't know what's going on there. That's going sky high relative to the dollar. The Brazilians aren't going to stand for it. The Swiss franc is the other one.
At some point, the Brazilians and the Swiss are going to cry, "Foul," and do something. They're going to put on capital controls or say you can no longer have 30 day deposits. They have to be . . .
James: Negative interest rates like the Swiss did back in the '70s.
Jim: Negative interest rates, or maybe just extend the maturity. Say, "Hey, you want to make a Swiss franc bet? Fine. No more 30 day bets. It's got to be a one year bet or a two year bet." But some kind of . . . Close the capital account in some way. If they don't do that, what's going to happen to the Swiss economy? Tourism's going to dry up. Exports are going to dry up.
And then think of the Swiss multinationals like Nestle, where most of their money comes from overseas. If you have a strong Swiss franc, those overseas earnings are going to be worth less. So when they issue their financial statements in Swiss francs they're going to suffer losses. So you're going to hurt your stock market, tourism, and exports all at the same time.
They're not going to put up with it. But then if they take steps to weaken the franc, what does that do to the dollar? You're back to the zero sum game.
James: Let's step back a little bit from the currency side and look more at the big picture in terms of what's happening. I want to bring up one of my favorite quotes from Margaret Thatcher. She said, "The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." Isn't that really what's happening worldwide? Regardless of what they do with the currencies that something fundamental has to shift and change here?
Jim: I think it's already happened. I think the world is broke. I think if you did a hypothetical consolidated financial statement of every financial institution in the world, it would have a negative net worth. Now, there are some pockets of real money. Some of the sovereign wealth funds, some of the endowments. They're long only.
They've got these long term contingent obligations to their beneficiaries or their citizens. But particularly in the case of citizens, those are very hard to define. They're well managed. So they sort of look like pockets of capital, but they're few and far between.
The banking system and the national balance sheets, again, on a market to market basis, I think there's no capital left in the world. So I think Margaret Thatcher was not just correct, she was prophetic, and we've already reached that point.
So then the question is, where do we go from here? Well, for a while, my favorite metaphor is the old "Roadrunner" cartoon, where the coyote runs out over the cliff, he's in midair, and he doesn't realize it right away and he looks down and crashes.
James: Are we over the cliff now?
Jim: I think we are over the cliff. But we're still . . .
James: Believe we're still running.
Jim: . . . Running in midair, believe we're still running and haven't looked down yet. I think that's where we are.
James: When are we going to start looking down? Are we pretty close?
Jim: We're very close. I think this deficit debate, this debt ceiling debate that we just went through in the United States was at least a glance in that direction because it says, "Well, we can't just keep spending. We can't spend our way out of a situation of indebtedness." Now, a lot of people disagree with that. You've got Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman says, "Our biggest make was we should have spent more." And I hear Larry Summers saying the same thing.
I hear the President saying the same thing. So there's a lot of who people think that these Keynesian remedies just haven't been tried hard enough and we ought to double down.
By the way, I think that's what the 2012 election in the United States will be all about. It's going to be these competing philosophies.
One is, if we just spend a little more and increase aggregate demand and government expenditure multiplier, we'll get self sustaining growth.
And the other side's saying, "Are you crazy? We're over indebted. We need to clean up our balance sheet, cut spending, save more, invest more, cut taxes, improve productivity." This is the debate for 2012.
James: It's clear that there's no political will to get off this road that the US government is on. I mean, they're talking about cutting from future spending. They're not actually really talking about cutting the deficit. Why should we believe that they're going to solve that problem in 2012? Because I'm the view that the government is over leveraged. You just look at it on a cash flow statement. They've got so much promises and commitments, I don't see how they could ever possibly fulfill them.
Jim: I'm not sure we should believe them. This is why I say, going back to the international monetary system and the role of gold and these four scenarios of multiple reserve currencies, SDRs, gold and chaos, I'm betting on chaos. I don't want that. I don't favor that. I don't think it's necessary. I think there are policies you could pursue to pull back from the brink and avoid that. But I agree, the political will is lacking. The political will is there in some people, certainly there in the Tea Party. It's there in some more thoughtful conservatives.
Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles are not exactly Tea Party tub thumpers, so to speak, but they've come out in the same place.
James: But was the debt limit increase a victory or a defeat for the Tea Party? You could look at it both ways.
Jim: Well, it was certainly not a solution or an answer. It was a victory in the narrow political sense, which was it was more their way than the President's way and it was better than the next best thing. So, in pure political space, it was a victory. But if you're asking whether it was a solution, absolutely not.
This is not even a drop in the bucket, because, as you pointed out, James, spending cuts are not spending cuts.
In every state of the world we spend more, but if we spend a little bit less more than we would have otherwise, if that's the right turn of phrase, then people call that a cut. But they're not cuts at all. Spending's going up, deficits are going up, debt is going up, and there's no end in sight.
Actually, we're sitting here in London. Last night, the US exceeded a 100 percent debt to GDP ratio, I think, for the first time since World War II.
In other words, there had been a lack of borrowing because the debt ceiling had not been raised, so the Treasury had a backlog of issuance.
Once the debt ceiling was raised, I think the President signed it on Monday if I'm not mistaken, the Treasury went out with a monster $280 billion auction yesterday, and that new debt pushed us over the 100 percent debt to GDP ratio.
Now, here's the problem. GDP is about 15 trillion, give or take. Our deficits are running about 1.5 trillion, give or take. So that's 10 percent.
So we're adding 10 percent new debt every year, putting 1.5 trillion on top of a $15 trillion economy. So we're increasing the debt to GDP ratio 10 percent every year, but GDP is only growing about two percent.
Now, if you look at the Congressional Budget Office projections, they would say, "Well, GDP is going to grow four or five, and we're going to put the debt issuance on a downward path, so eventually that debt to GDP ratio will come back into alignment." But that's not happening.
James: The economy is slipping into a double dip, as they call it.
Jim: Correct. You're right. Technically, it may be a double dip recession, but that's not how I think of it.
James: Yeah, it's the same recession, isn't it?
Jim: Well, I call it a depression. This is the second Great Depression.
James: OK. I agree with you.Jim: It started in 2007. It's going to run, depending on policy, till 2014, maybe longer.
James: So a 1.5 trillion deficit is really unrealistic for this year, isn't it?
Jim: Yes, because growth will be lower, tax receipts will be smaller, although there are other factors in play. The 99ers, that's 99 weeks of unemployment benefit, that's expiring later this year. Remember, unemployment started out as a 26 week program. That's classic unemployment. Then they had it extended to 52. And then they extended it to 99, which is almost two years.
James: So maybe they'll just extend it again.
Jim: Well, back to the Tea Party. I mean, you think that was a fight over the debt ceiling; watch what happens on extending these benefits. I'm sure the White House wants that. I'm sure they'll make the case for it. But I'm not sure that that's going to pass.
And so, if they don't extend it, when did the recession hit full force? When was unemployment going up the fastest? It was 2009. This depression started in 2007 because that's when the housing bubble popped and we started to get asset price deflation in certain important sectors.
But it was 2009 was the bottom of the first recession phase of the depression, when unemployment spiked. So that cohort, those people who lost their jobs then, who haven't got jobs in the meantime, are now the 99ers.
They're going to come off unemployment later this year. That's going to cut consumption, cut government expenditure.
So there are forces driving the deficit higher. There are other forces driving GDP lower. So you're exactly right: this debt to GDP ratio's going to get a lot worse. We're going to get up to Greek levels.
James: Well, the other thing that's scaring me is, and I follow these numbers very closely because to me it's an indication of where the gold market is going, but basically, of every $100 the US government is spending, about 60 percent comes from revenue and 40 percent comes from debt. Historically, once you go over that 40 percent, you're really on the road to hyper inflation. Now, I wanted to get your thoughts. Do you see a hyper inflationary outlook for the dollar as the U.S. governments tries to fulfill its promises and just turns to Mr. Bernanke and the printing press to give ever worthless dollars to fulfill those promises?
Jim: It's certainly possible. The way I think about it, James, is they're almost like tectonic plates pushing against each other. Now, when you've got two powerful plates pushing against each other, just because there's no earthquake today doesn't mean there's not a lot of tension building up. There is. We have natural deflation coming from the depression and we have inflation coming from policy.
Now, the fact is they're pushing against each other. The actual inflation measure, CPI if you can believe it, around two percent, so economists would say that's fairly well behaved. But that's not stable at all. It's what physicists call minimally stable state.
In other words, the forces are still there and that's going to break at some point. When? It's hard to say. I wouldn't be necessarily tomorrow, but it could be tomorrow. Which way will it break? Will Bernanke, in effect, throw in the towel and say, "Look, we've done all we can do. We've just got to take our medicine and let this deflationary part of the cycle play out."
In which case deflation might prevail. Or, will he double down or triple down or do whatever it takes, as they've said. I think that's more likely. Then, you just get into the risk of hyper inflation.
What's interesting to me is that gold wins either way. Gold is, very intuitively, always been a strong inflation hedge.
What a lot of analysts don't understand is that it's a very good deflation hedge as well. During the 1930s, it was the greatest prolonged deflationary episode in US history, gold went up 75 percent. Homestake Mining was the best performing stock on the New York Stock Exchange. So, gold has a history of doing well in deflation also.
James: Yeah. I agree with you on that. The way I describe it is gold is a monetary problem hedge regardless of what that monetary problem is. Inflation, deflation, bad banks, sovereign credit crisis. You name it. People will go to gold in order to protect themselves when there's uncertainty about the monetary outlook.
Jim: Right. I think I come out in the same place. Here's how I describe gold. I say, "Gold is not a commodity, it's not an investment, and it's not a trade."
James: You sound like me.
Jim: "Gold is money."
James: Yeah.
Jim: If you want some money, you better have some gold. And in real terms its value changes very little. I was talking to someone the other day and I said, "I can see gold at $7,000 an ounce. It's not tomorrow. It might be a couple years, but I can definitely see it at $7,000 an ounce." The person was surprised and he said, "Really? Is that true? You really think it's true?" I said, "Well, I do think it's true, but bear in mind that gold won't actually be worth any more. The dollar will be worth less."
James: Yeah. We'll be paying $7 a gallon for gas, or whatever.
Jim: Correct. Exactly. But it is a way to preserve wealth. And it is the one true [indecipherable 30:44] value.
James: Yeah. I was discussing that this morning with a reporter and the way I was explaining it is that gold is not an investment because it doesn't create wealth. He was saying, "Well, the price of gold goes up." I said, "Well, the purchasing power of the currency is going down."
Jim: Right.
James: Then he said, "Doesn't gold go from undervaluation to overvaluation?" I said, "Yes, it does. But it's not creating wealth, it's just merely redistributing it from people who are holding paper currency to people who are holding gold." That's, I think, how it's going to continue playing out until at some point in time in the future, gold becomes overvalued. Then you're going to want to use it to get into undervalued assets, whatever they might be at that future date.
Jim: Correct. I think that's exactly right. I agree with that. I think there are objective ways of figuring that out. For example, the $800 gold pricing in the early '80s, that was objectively a bubble. You could say it was a bubble.
Why is that? Because when gold was $800 an ounce, the market value of all the official gold of the United States was greater than the money supply.
It was more than 100 percent. Everybody with a dollar could have walked down to the treasury, handed it in, got gold at market value.
James: Greater than M1.
Jim: Greater than M1. There would have been gold left over. Even as a gold advocate, a gold standard advocate, I can see a case for 40 percent gold backing. It depends on the politics and the mechanism, but the hard shell gold advocates say, "No. It has to be 100 percent." Nobody thinks it has to be 110 percent.
My point is, when you see it getting to that level, it's a bubble. How far away are we from that? Well, right now we're very far away. I mean, that number today would be about $7,000 an ounce, but bear in mind it's a moving target. By the time you get there, M1 may have doubled again and it'll be 14.
James: Yeah. If we're working on quantitative easing number six at that stage, who knows what the gold price could be?
Jim: That's right. It's less important to pick a number in my mind than it is to understand the dynamic. Because when you understand the dynamic you can just plug in the numbers as variables and get to the right place.
James: One other thing about the U.S. before we move on to Asia. Right now, I just looked at the numbers recently, the total government share of the economy, US, Federal, state, and whatnot, is approximately . . . Just under 41 percent of total GDP.
We have more government spending today than we did when the government was on a war footing back during World War II. This is unsustainable in my view. Do you agree? See it as unsustainable?
Jim: Well, I would say it's incompatible with growth. In other words, you can sustain it, but the price of doing so is to give up on growth and have the kind of 25 percent youth unemployment that you see in Europe.
Take away people's hope, take away jobs, take away entrepreneurship, and put a lot of what's very typical of America and American growth to one side.
I think you can sustain it by coercion, heavy taxation and government mandates, but you won't have a growing economy and you won't have a land of opportunity.
James: So, government basically has to shrink and it can do it either of two ways. Under a planned program of over five or ten years, let's say. Or chaotic.
Jim: Correct. When people talk about cuts, because as we just discussed, they're talking about cutting future spending from . . .
James: What they intended to spend.
Jim: Ten trillion to nine trillion or whatever. But they're still spending more every year. I would be in favor of radical cuts. I would go into the Department of Education and I would say the following, "We're bringing in McKinsey and IBM Global Services.
We're going to perform an audit of your programs. Let's say you have 400 programs. I want them to identify the 20 programs that work, and the 380 programs that don't work.
"And here's what we're going to do. We're going to shut down the whole thing. We're going to fire all you people. We're going to discontinue these 380 programs. We're going to take the 20 programs that work, push them down to the states, and fund them.
"We'll give the states money for those successful programs and they can administer them at the state level. But you are done. The Department of Education, done." Then go over to other departments and just keep going.
James: One at a time.
Jim: One at a time. Those are cuts. Those are not phony cuts. Those are real cuts.
James: But we're not seeing that.
Jim: We're not seeing anything close to it. I don't think you can have the discussion that you and I are having, it's a good thing we're in London because we couldn't have this discussion in Washington and be taken seriously. But I do take it seriously because I think that's the only thing that works.
James: Let's turn to Asia. South Korea just announced a big purchase of physical gold bullion. Is more of this going to be coming out of Asia in the months ahead?
Jim: Yes.
James: Particularly given the fact that South Korea is a close political ally of the US. It's a bit of a slap in the face to the U.S., isn't it?
Jim: Especially after the chairman's recent testimony. There was a colloquy at a public hearing between Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke. Chairman Paul was kind of berating Chairman Bernanke saying, "Mr. Chairman, when you wake up in the morning do you ever think about gold?" Finally, I think Bernanke lost his temper a little bit and said, "Gold is not money."
Well, now we see the South Korean Central Bank saying, "You know, maybe gold is money. We're a bank and we're going to acquire some."
I think actions speak louder than words. I think South Korea's actions speak louder than Ben Bernanke's words.
But more to the point, when I saw they bought 25 tons that came as no surprise that central banks would be net buyers. What I was interested in was where did they get it? Because I would have thought something . . . An order that size would be an official to official transaction, so maybe it came . . . I would doubt it would come from the United States, but where could it come from?
IMF or a few other places. But no, they bought it on the market. They must have acquired over time. I'm not sure who the sellers were.
Now what China's doing is even more interesting. China is desperate to increase its gold supply, but they understand that what they're . . . They're out to buy 3,000 tons. That's a far cry from 25 tons.
James: Without rocking the boat.
Jim: Without rocking the boat. And, of course, the only way to do that is to basically buy mines and strip their own mines. They've turned their domestic, i.e. Chinese mining industry, into a captive.
They're the largest gold producer in the world today. They produce a little over 300 tons. So they're taking, not all of it, but about half of those 300 tons are going to official holdings. The other half are being sold to the Chinese people. So they've turned their own gold mines into captives.
But what they do is they go to the mining companies and say, "Look. Gold's on its way to the $1,700 an ounce or whatever. Your cost of production is $400 an ounce. So we're going to pay you $900 an ounce. You're making very good profits, thank you very much. And I'm buying it for one third the world price."
They can enforce that through labor laws and environmental laws, tax laws. They've got so many guns pointed at the head of the domestic mining industry that they can do that.
So they're not having market impact because it's going straight from the mine to vault. They're buying it below market because they have a captive industry.
What are the costs of that? There are two. Number one, pollution is awful. We all know that cyanide is used in gold mining.
Canadian and U.S. miners, they have to cage it, they have to capture it, account for every drop and dispose of it, et cetera and it adds a lot of expense to mining.
In Japan, they just dump it in the rivers. So they're poisoning their rivers with cyanide. The other thing they're doing . . . I was talking to an analyst this morning. He said, "Well, to extrapolate that out enough years, they'll eventually get to their 5,000 tons or whatever." The answer is no. Those mines are going to be depleted in about four years. It's not as if there were a lot more mines.
They're mining as fast as they can. They're taking all that gold and putting it in the vault but they're going to strip those mines in four or five years, or maybe less. And so, that's not sustainable from their point of view.
All the pressure . . . Central banks going from net sellers to net buyers . . . We've seen South Korea. The Philippines have been buying. Vietnam has been buying. It's not just the big guys. Brazil looks very weak in this dimension.
James: And we know India stepped in to buy the IMF gold a year and a half ago, whenever that was. Sri Lanka, I think, bought some. Maybe South Korea bought some of the IMF gold that's been dribbled out into the market. It was accumulated over time, perhaps.
Jim: That's possible. I'm not sure, but the Indian purchase was interesting because that was a real slap in the face of the Chinese. It was the United States, because the United States, in effect, controls the IMF. It was our way of saying, "We take care of our friends and we marginalize our adversaries."
It was definitely a slap at China because China would have loved . . . That gold went at $1,050 an ounce. China would have loved to have been buying some of that gold but they weren't given the opportunity. It was given to the Indians.
India is another interesting case, because the official gold is not that great, but the private gold is huge. I don't know the exact number, but I've spoken to Indians. I've heard numbers from 5,000 tons up to 10,000 tons of private gold.
James: Yeah, I've heard even a little bit bigger than that on total private gold holdings. But big, big numbers.
Jim: Correct. They're sort of a gold power, even though they're official reserves are sort of puny.
James: Plus the production is inconsequential, so it's all imported and it has a big impact on the world price, whereas China, to a large extent, is self sufficient. At least for now.
Jim: For now. At least for now, but they . . . They've still got their agents out trying to do what South Korea just did. Can you imagine the South Korean announcement applied to China? China just bought X tons.
The last time they announced an increase in their gold reserves, it was the result of five years of covert activity.
They had intelligence agents and private agents and anonymous names doing all kinds of things in the market. They acquired . . . it was about 500 tons. And then they announced it all at once. But what they did, it was interesting. They have a sovereign wealth fund inside China called SAFE. It's the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
SAFE actually acquired the gold. SAFE is nontransparent, whereas the People's Bank of China tries to be somewhat transparent.
SAFE acquired the gold over five years and then flipped it to the central bank in a single accounting transaction. And then the People's Bank of China says, "Hello, we've got 500 tons." But they had been acquiring it for five years.
James: But just reported it at one fell swoop.
Jim: That's correct.
James: Once they had a certain amount. Was that a political statement when they reported it?
Jim: It was partly a political statement. It was also an indication of the dilemma they have, because the market impact of the Chinese announcements are so great. Again, this was back at . . . They were acquiring it at various price levels, between $700 and $1000 an ounce.
And then, gold's gone up significantly from there. Can you imagine a comparable announcement today? It would be South Korea on steroids.
James: Yeah, particularly with what's going on in the world today. Any last comments that you'd like to share with the viewers? This is going to be viewed by thousands of people around the world. Any last comments you'd like to wrap up on?
Jim: Yeah. I think, again, for people trying to preserve wealth, I've always recommended a gold component. I never go all in. I would never advise a client to go 100 percent into gold. My view is for the conservative investor maybe 10 percent. For the more aggressive investor, maybe 20 percent. But even if you just think of yourself as a small saver with cash only and you don't bet on risky stocks. Having 10 percent in gold is a good . . . That's not risky. That's a good, prudent thing to do. So I would just ask people to think about that.
James: It's a nice diversification to be in that safe haven.
Jim: Correct.
James: Jim Rickards, Senior Managing Director of Tangent Capital. Thank you for being with us today.
Jim: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.
James: A really great pleasure.
Monday, November 14, 2011
APEC 2011: Hu Jintao
Advice: Use Internet Explorer! (Just for This Post)
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Michael Moore: Ocupy Oakland 28.10.11
Michael Moore: “Greetings, Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy Oakland! Occupy everywhere!! I, I am honoured to be here, to be part of this. Uh, to the media who are present, uh, let me stress to you, this movement has no spokesperson. Everyone here is a spokesperson. Everyone here, everyone here has a story to tell. There are people here who have no health insurance. There are people here who do not have a job. There are people here who are living in poverty. There are people here who have jobs, but have been told to take less. And I invite you to interview the thousands of other spokespeople who are here at Occupy Oakland. Someone asked me, ‘Who is the leader of this organisation?’ [Guffaws] And I said, ‘We are all the leaders! Everyone here!’ We are all leaders. And we are all followers. We are all doing this together. The media and the power establishment is having a hard time figuring this out. So, be patient with them. They are used to just a few people showing up with a few signs and then they go away and have a meeting in the basement of the Unitarian Church. God bless the Unitarians, by the way. Those in charge in this country and the media arm of Wall Street and corporate America were not prepared for this to be happening in hundreds, hundreds of cities across this country right now! Hundreds! And it has, it has happened with no leaders, no organisation, no dues pay, no dues to pay. It’s happened organically from the grassroots, the true grassroots. And in my lifetime, I have never seen a movement like this take hold this fast with this many people all across the country. Thank you, everyone, all of us for doing this. And there’s no turning back, is there?”
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore: “There’s no turning back!!”
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was at Occupy Wall Street last night, in Zuccotti Park, Liberty Plaza, and I am here to bring greetings from the original Occupy Wall Street. Thank you, Oakland! Thank you, Oakland!”
Audience Member (male): “Power to the people! Power to the people!”
Michael Moore: “I said, I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ It was almost a freezing rain last night in New York City. I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ And they said, ‘There’s two guys over there right now who have flown in from Occupy Anchorage.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “And they are here to consult with us on how to make it through the winter!”
Crowd: [Laughs Cheers]
Michael Moore: “They said there’s even an ice company in New Jersey that has offered large blocks of ice to build igloos in Zuccotti Park. The Mayor, and the Police, and Wall Street are hoping that the winter will kill the movement in the same way that they don’t understand that this is a leaderless organisation with tens of millions of spokespeople. They also don’t understand that weather is not the problem facing us right now. Climate change is facing us. But the weather in New York City is not going to stop this incredible movement. Let me just give you an idea, uh, because I’ve been travelling the country, what I’ve seen. Uh, there’s a town about, maybe a hundred and fifty miles east of here called Grass Valley, California. Are you familiar with it?”
Crowd: “Yeah!!!” [Cheers]
Michael Moore: “Where the hell is Grass Valley, right? No, I know where it is. Nobody across the country knows Grass Valley. And, of course, the media doesn’t know Grass Valley. But last weekend, in Grass Valley, there were 400 people participating in Occupy Grass Valley. 400 people! There’s, there’s only a few thousand people in the town. Alright? And, and everyone was there, old, young, out of work, people with work, the spread of American society is at each of these. You could see it right now. I can see it. I am sitting here looking at the mosaic that this country is right now, right here in Oakland. This is—”
Audience Member (male): “Hey cameraman, turn around and take a picture.”
Michael Moore: “We’ll get the cameras to turn around here, just a sec-, you know, I don’t understand it either. I’ve wondered this for a long time. Uh, and I’ve tried to explain to them that this is not what people want to be looking at while they’re eating dinner and watching the six o’clock news. So, I’m sorry. But I’m getting healthy. And I’m now in my tenth month with no red meat. [Guffaws]”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “And that will be the sound bite on the evening news.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Now, this is the first of these that I’ve spoken at where there’s an amplified sound system. Um, what laws are we breaking here?”
Audience Member (male): “A lot.”
Michael Moore: “A lot of laws? [Chuckles] Um—”
Audience Member (male): “We set it up just for you!”
Michael Moore: “Thank you! Thank you. Um, Mayor Quan is having a press conference right now. Uh—”
Crowd: “Boo!!!”
Michael Moore: “—upstairs. I sent her an email asking if we could, uh, speak, um, while I was here. Uh, but I have to tell you the other night, uh, both Tuesday and Wednesday night, um, not being here and watching from afar, uh, what took place here, um, was really horrifying, uh, to see this in this country. Um, it made, it made, it made the rest of the people in the United States aware of something that maybe many of you had been aware of for the last decade and that is the militarisation of our local police departments.”
Crowd: “Yeah!! [Cheers Applause] Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “The Congress is not allowed to tell the public how much is spent on Homeland Security, but these local police departments all across the country over the last ten years have sucked up, literally, billions of dollars to buy sophisticated equipment, to buy armaments that you use in a warzone—”
Crowd: “Boo!”
Michael Moore: “—to buy tanks, to set up spying systems."
Audience Member (male): “On our tax dollars."
Michael Moore: "Yes, we paid for this. And, um, and to prepare for what they believe is the inevitable, which is the people, sooner or later, aren’t going to take it any longer.”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “Ten years—”
Audience Member (male): “Don’t protect the corporations!!!”
Audience Member (male): “Fuck them!"
Crowd: “Shhh. Shhh.”
Michael Moore: “Ten years after 9/11, the majority of Americans realise who the real terrorists are. They are the people who, who create policies and who do things that literally do kill people. For instance, a Congressional Committee last month released these figures. They wanted to find out how many Americans die every year because, simply from the fact, that they don’t have health insurance. They didn’t go to the doctor ‘cos they didn’t have insurance. Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year simply because they don’t have health insurance. My friends, that is fifteen 9/11s every single year! A system, a system that is set up to harm our own citizens! A profit-making insurance system! Who said that it is morally correct to make a profit off people when they get sick? Do ya, how, how sick is that? I can tell you—”
Audience Member (male): “Neocolonialism!”
Michael Moore: “How much money—”
Audience Member (male): “Free America!”
Michael Moore: “—has corporate America made from these two wars? These two illegal, immoral wars? How much have they made? We are still spending over $2 billion dollars a week on these wars. What could we do with that money if it was here in Oakland and Flint, Michigan and across the country? Somebody asked me, coming in here, ‘Who organised this?’
Scattered Members of Crowd: “We did!!”
Michael Moore: “Who organised this? I know, I know, I know you think we, the people, organised it, right. [Laughs] Where is Wells Fargo? I just passed it on the street. If you want to know who organised this, they organised it! The people on Wall Street organised this! Bank of America organised this! ExxonMobil, BP organised this! They did more by simply putting their boot on the necks of millions of Americans. And like any human being, like any human being, how long can you keep a boot on your neck?”
Audience Member (male): “Not one more second, we ain’t takin' it no more!!!!”
Michael Moore: “Not for one second with the boot on the neck.”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Audience Member (male): “Go, ‘head, Mike.”
Audience Member (male): “Oakland style, brotha.”
Michael Moore: “[Laughs] I know. He said, 'It’s Oakland style. We’re doing this Oakland style.’”
Audience Member (male): “Occupy!”
Michael Moore: “Let me tell you something else I’ve discovered across the country. Um, and that is, um, America, contrary to what maybe many here believe and the way it’s portrayed to us in the media, America is not a conservative country. Most Americans are actually quite liberal in their beliefs. They may not call themselves liberals, but if you look at any of the polls, the majority of Americans, come down on the liberal side of the issue on just about every single issue. The majority of Americans are against these wars. The majority of Americans want universal health care. The majority of Americans believe women should be paid the same as men. The majority of Americans—”
Audience Member (female): “That’s because they are the majority!”
Michael Moore: “—want stronger environmental laws, not weaker ones.”
Audience Member (male): “School closures! School closures!”
Michael Moore: “And for the first time last month, in a poll that was taken, for the first time 54%, the majority of Americans, say they believe gay marriage should be the law of the land.”
Audience Member (male): “…legalise marijuana!”
Michael Moore: “That’s the country you live in. That’s the, that’s the country you live in. And I know to people in the Bay Area it may seem to get a little scary as you head toward Richmond.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Did I pick the right town?”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “I need another town. What? As you head towards Walnut Creek!”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was, I was just trying to remember BART stops. Um. Can I just put that down there? ('Yeah. I got you.') Um, but as you go, as you go across this country you see that that’s the country you share, the people out there. That’s why they’re int-, that’s why 72% last week said they believe taxes should be raised on the rich, 72%. So—“
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “So, to the media who are here, um, this is a few thousand people. But everybody here represents a few thousand more, or a few ten thousand more, everybody here. That’s how large this is. That’s why it can’t be stopped. Too many people have been thrown out of their homes. Too many people have had their schools decimated to where their kids aren’t getting a proper education.”
Audience Member (male): “Five schools are being shut down in Oakland!”
Michael Moore: “We now live in a country with 40 million adults who are functional illiterates. How did that happen?”
Audience Member (male): “We’re being oppressed!”
Michael Moore: “It benefits, it benefits those in charge to have an ignorant population. To have a population with 40 million people in it that cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level. Who benefits from that? It’s like they’ve set up the schools now to make sure that you can operate the cash register at McDonald’s and you know how to greet someone in a sentence with a noun and a verb in it as they come into Walmart. Let me tell you, let me tell ya who does know that this, that the people of this country have had it and that there’s a very progressive thread and vein going through this country right now. That’s the other side, Wall Street, corporate America, the right-wing, they know, they know this is a liberal country! All you have to do is turn on talk radio or Fox News, they’re so angry, they’re so angry aren’t they? Let me ask you this. If this was a conservative, right-wing country, wouldn’t, if you turned on Fox News every night, wouldn’t they just be, ‘Yip-a-dee-do-da, Yip-a-dee-day?’ They’re not that way, are they? They’re like, ‘Aargh!’ Every night, it’s ‘Raargh! Raargh!’ They’re, they’re just, they, there’s a reason why they wanna suppress the vote next year. There’s a reason why they’re passing laws throughout the country to make it harder for poor people, for senior citizens, for people of colour to vote. There’s a reason they’re doing that. What’s the reason? They know, they know, no, it’s very simple, they can do math. They know they’re in the minority. They know they’re in the minority. Otherwise, really, why would you wanna suppress the vote if you thought America agreed with you? You wouldn’t do that, would you? No! If you believed, if you believed that America was with you, you’d be setting up voting booths in every aisle of every Walmart all across the country!”
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “That’s not what they’re doing. Um, I also want to tell you, especially those of you who have been camping out here, um, thank you for doing that. You are better; you are better men and women than I am. Give me another year without the red meat. ‘Wait, we’ve got our second sound bite.’ Um, but watching the other night, um, [long pause] Scott Olsen.”
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “It is absolutely criminal that this young man was willing to go and risk his life in a war that he, once over there, didn’t agree with, that he would risk his life like this and the only place he had to worry about was here in his own country, in Oakland, California. Um, I think, um, well one thing we can do for the media who are here is to let them know that we are all Scott Olsen. We are all with Scott Olsen! And we are all Scott Olsens! And we will not tolerate our fellow citizens being treated that way by the people that we fund with our tax dollars. I don’t, I don’t pay people, I don’t pay people to take a gun, or a tear gas gun and point it at me and hit me in the head with their ammunition or their tear gas canister. That would be as crazy as me coming up to you right now and saying to you, ‘Oh, by the way, would you just punch me in the face?’ Why would I do that? Um, I think all of us want to send our best wishes, our prayers, our good karma, everything that we could muster to Scott, so that he is better and well. And, yeah, and I think, I think that, uh, let’s have 30 seconds of silence in honour of Scott Olsen and our hope that he will recover quickly from his injuries. Um, I’m goin’ on too long here and, uh, I—”
Crowd: “Nah!!!”
Michael Moore: “Well, well, yeah, but. No, no, but I—”
Audience Member (male): “You gotta get to Richmond!”
Michael Moore: “I know. Now that I’ve, now that I’ve singled out Richmond, I’m going to have to go and participate in Occupy Richmond.”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!!”
Michael Moore: “Or Walnut Creek.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Walnut Creek is where we need to be, right? Isn’t that where the money is? Alright.”
Crowd: [Scattered shouts and appeals]
Michael Moore: “Um, I, I, I understand that Mayor Quan is, uh, she’s finishing up her press conference. And I am gonna try and, uh, see if I can, uh, talk to her. Uh, you know, I saw her, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that when she came yesterday to talk that she didn’t wait to speak at the General Assembly because I, I think the, uh, well, there’s a, there’s a process, we’re not in a General Assembly right now. But there’s a process at the General Assembly where you sign up to speak and we’re all equals. You know? When I’ve, when I’ve been down, you know, I’ve been at New York, so I’ve been at Occupy Wall Street and if I’m number 17 to speak, I’m number 17 to speak. And it doesn’t matter if I’m Michael Moore or Michael Schmoe. You know. It doesn’t, and, and it’s the spirit, that’s why this movement has built because it is a movement of equals. Everybody has something to give to this. We’re all in this together. We’re gonna sink or swim together. That’s our choice right now. When, when they, when I was there last night, somebody asked one of the people in the media tent, ‘What are the goals? What are you trying to accomplish?’ And he said, well, he said, ‘Our mission is in our name, Occupy Wall Street,’ and then he said, ‘Period.’ I thought about that for a second. Occupy Wall Street, period. In other words, it isn’t just about these encampments; it’s that we’re not stopping until we, the people, occupy our economy that runs this country! This is our economy! It’s our country! We’re the ones that have a say. And, and when somebody says to me, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘What’s the goal? What’s the end-game?’ And I say, ‘Well, let me tell you somethin’ first of all, we’ve already had a number of victories in our first six weeks. And let’s acknowledge those victories. Alright? Number one, number one, we have killed despair across the country. The despair that people were feeling, that despair is dissipating right now. This movement has killed apathy. People have got up off the sofa! They’ve turned off Dancing with the Stars! And gone out in the streets! This is a victory! There’s something very important we’ve done. Six weeks ago, what was all the media talking about? All the politicians in Washington? All the pundits? What was the, what was the national discussion that we weren’t part of that they determined? What were they talking about? The debt ceiling. The debt! The debt ceiling!! The deficit! We gotta reduce the deficit!! We gotta reduce the deficit!! Over and over and over all summer long! The debt ceiling! The deficit! The debt ceiling! The deficit! Can I ask you honestly? When’s the last time in the last few weeks you heard them talking about the debt ceiling? Or the deficit? When was the last time? This movement has shook down that bullshit discussion.”
Crowd: “Yeah!! Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “That is a huge victory. You have altered the national discussion. You have altered it! This is what people are talking about in every town, village, and city across America. Occupy Oakland!! Occupy New York!! Occupy San Francisco!! Occupy Grass Valley!! Occupy Walnut Creek!! Occupy Flint, Michigan!! Occupy everywhere!!! This is the discussion we’re gonna have!!! And we’re not ceding the discussion to anybody else!!!
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, in conclusion, in conclusion, um, I am—”
Audience Member (male): “Move your seat!”
Michael Moore: “—did you just yell at a disabled guy to move his cane?”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “They told me there were plants here from the police. Plain-clothes, plain-clothes officer, let me just remind you, when you yell too loud at a disabled person, ‘Put down the cane,’ we know who you are. But welcome! Welcome! Because police officers, you’re part of the 99%, too! They’ll be coming after you! They’ll be coming after your home and your health care and your children. There’s a number or towns, there’s a number of towns across this country that are behaving differently than Oakland. There are police departments and police unions, hang on, there are police departments and police unions across the country supporting the Occupy movements in their towns. Albany, New York, a beautiful example, the Governor told them to remove the people and the police said, ‘We don’t consider that part of the police work.’”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, the police do have a choice, even in Oakland. It’s still America, Oakland P.D. It’s a free country. You can join us. You can join us. You don’t have to join them. You don’t have to be here defending Wells Fargo and Bank of America and BP and everybody else! You can stand up for yourselves and everybody else! Alright. Um, so, please keep this alive here. I know there’s gonna be a lot of snow this winter.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Audience Member (male): “Not here!”
Michael Moore: “I wanna say one more thing about something I saw last week. Pete Seeger was, he had a concert, he did a concert up on the corner, it was he and Arlo and Tom Chapin and a few others. Um, he had a concert up at the corner of 95th and Broadway at Symphony Space in New York. And afterwards, they decided to march from Symphony Space down to Columbus Circle. That’s 36 blocks. Pete is 92 years old on, on two canes. On two canes he walked the entire way.”
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “And when we got to Columbus Circle and he was leading everyone, thousands of people, singing ‘This Land is Your Land.’ And he looked over and there were two New York City policemen singing along.”
Audience Member (male): “Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “Um, right—[Michael Moore passes the microphone to man behind him: “There’s good and bad police just like there’s good and bad people.]
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “We are stronger than any rubber bullet or bean bag or tear gas canister. There’s too many of us. And what are they defending in the first place? A broken system in a country that has benefited the few at the expense of the many. The time for that to end is right now. And when the history of—”
Background: [A blast is heard in the distance, as Michael Moore flinches and turns around]
Michael Moore: “—when the history—”
Audience Member: “We’re from Oakland!”
Michael Moore: “[Laughs] You know how sad it is? He says, ‘We’re from Oakland we’re used to that.’”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “You shouldn’t be used to it. You know if you lived in any of the Weste-, other democracies, the one to the north of us, you know, you would never say a statement like that, ‘Oh, we’re used to that.’ You know, other people in other countries have decided to organise themselves differently. We can do that, too. And, don’t worry. For those of you who aren’t quite sure, who may just have stopped by to see this today and you’re wondering, ‘Yeah, but where’s this goin? I need to know more. I gotta figure this out.’ Don’t, don’t approach this like other movements from the past. Don’t approach it like a term paper. Um, just join in because the group itself, something will come out of this and it will be good. It will be good and generous to each other. So, everybody’s gotta come into this on some level. And we could make this happen. So, I just, the thing I want to say, before the, uh, sound effects truck, um, was that when the history of this movement, uh, is written about these first few weeks where—”
Audience Member (male): “Or filmed.”
Michael Moore: “No, it’s not going to fail.”
Crowd: “No, filmed.”
Michael Moore: “The what?”
Audience Member (female): “Just let him talk.”
Michael Moore: “What film? Oh, or filmed? Yes.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Yeah. Are you making a film? No, I’m not making a film, no, no, no, no way. I’m not mak-, no, no, no. I’m sorry.”
Crowd: “[Applause] Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “I’m here as a citizen. By the way, haven’t I made those films? I was, uh—”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “I’ll tell you what I’m happy about and I have been a bit giddy and overjoyed these past few weeks because at the end of my last film I was pretty dejected, uh, if you did happen to see it. And I, and I didn’t, and I said at the end of the film as I was wrappin’ the crime scene tape around the New York Stock Exchange, um, that, uh, I just, really, I don’t know if I could keep doing this. I don’t know if I wanna make another film ‘cos I keep making these films and it’s, you know, when’s this gonna happen? When’s this gonna happen? And I said at the end of the film, ‘Let me know, audience, or people, when you wanna, when you wanna do something and I’ll do it with you.’ Um because, um, it’s, uh, it’s a little rough being the poster boy on Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, uh, everyday. And they can get away with it when it’s just the Michael Moore or Naomi Klein or even a number of great people that have been busy on this issue for many years. Um, but when there are a million Naomi Kleins or ten million Michael Moores they won’t know what the eff to do.”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, and that’s why they’re confused right now. So, when the history of this movement is written this week in Oakland, California will go down as a watershed moment. People, people across America were disgusted by what they saw here, when average Americans trying to stand up and peacefully assemble, to be brutally savaged and attacked by the police department that they pay for! That, that, let me tell you, the footage, you’re here. Okay? You’re here. We’re out there. We’ve been watching. Millions have watched it. And millions have been inspired by you because the next night you didn’t go away! You came back!!”
Crowd: “Yay!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “You came back!! You were supposed to go away!!! You were supposed to go away!!! What are you still doing here??!! And then you came back today!!! And you’ll be here tomorrow!!! And I’ll be with you!!! Thank you very much!!! Occupy Oakland, thank you!!!!
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore: “There’s no turning back!!”
Crowd: “No!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was at Occupy Wall Street last night, in Zuccotti Park, Liberty Plaza, and I am here to bring greetings from the original Occupy Wall Street. Thank you, Oakland! Thank you, Oakland!”
Audience Member (male): “Power to the people! Power to the people!”
Michael Moore: “I said, I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ It was almost a freezing rain last night in New York City. I said, ‘What are we gonna do with winter coming?’ And they said, ‘There’s two guys over there right now who have flown in from Occupy Anchorage.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “And they are here to consult with us on how to make it through the winter!”
Crowd: [Laughs Cheers]
Michael Moore: “They said there’s even an ice company in New Jersey that has offered large blocks of ice to build igloos in Zuccotti Park. The Mayor, and the Police, and Wall Street are hoping that the winter will kill the movement in the same way that they don’t understand that this is a leaderless organisation with tens of millions of spokespeople. They also don’t understand that weather is not the problem facing us right now. Climate change is facing us. But the weather in New York City is not going to stop this incredible movement. Let me just give you an idea, uh, because I’ve been travelling the country, what I’ve seen. Uh, there’s a town about, maybe a hundred and fifty miles east of here called Grass Valley, California. Are you familiar with it?”
Crowd: “Yeah!!!” [Cheers]
Michael Moore: “Where the hell is Grass Valley, right? No, I know where it is. Nobody across the country knows Grass Valley. And, of course, the media doesn’t know Grass Valley. But last weekend, in Grass Valley, there were 400 people participating in Occupy Grass Valley. 400 people! There’s, there’s only a few thousand people in the town. Alright? And, and everyone was there, old, young, out of work, people with work, the spread of American society is at each of these. You could see it right now. I can see it. I am sitting here looking at the mosaic that this country is right now, right here in Oakland. This is—”
Audience Member (male): “Hey cameraman, turn around and take a picture.”
Michael Moore: “We’ll get the cameras to turn around here, just a sec-, you know, I don’t understand it either. I’ve wondered this for a long time. Uh, and I’ve tried to explain to them that this is not what people want to be looking at while they’re eating dinner and watching the six o’clock news. So, I’m sorry. But I’m getting healthy. And I’m now in my tenth month with no red meat. [Guffaws]”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “And that will be the sound bite on the evening news.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Now, this is the first of these that I’ve spoken at where there’s an amplified sound system. Um, what laws are we breaking here?”
Audience Member (male): “A lot.”
Michael Moore: “A lot of laws? [Chuckles] Um—”
Audience Member (male): “We set it up just for you!”
Michael Moore: “Thank you! Thank you. Um, Mayor Quan is having a press conference right now. Uh—”
Crowd: “Boo!!!”
Michael Moore: “—upstairs. I sent her an email asking if we could, uh, speak, um, while I was here. Uh, but I have to tell you the other night, uh, both Tuesday and Wednesday night, um, not being here and watching from afar, uh, what took place here, um, was really horrifying, uh, to see this in this country. Um, it made, it made, it made the rest of the people in the United States aware of something that maybe many of you had been aware of for the last decade and that is the militarisation of our local police departments.”
Crowd: “Yeah!! [Cheers Applause] Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “The Congress is not allowed to tell the public how much is spent on Homeland Security, but these local police departments all across the country over the last ten years have sucked up, literally, billions of dollars to buy sophisticated equipment, to buy armaments that you use in a warzone—”
Crowd: “Boo!”
Michael Moore: “—to buy tanks, to set up spying systems."
Audience Member (male): “On our tax dollars."
Michael Moore: "Yes, we paid for this. And, um, and to prepare for what they believe is the inevitable, which is the people, sooner or later, aren’t going to take it any longer.”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “Ten years—”
Audience Member (male): “Don’t protect the corporations!!!”
Audience Member (male): “Fuck them!"
Crowd: “Shhh. Shhh.”
Michael Moore: “Ten years after 9/11, the majority of Americans realise who the real terrorists are. They are the people who, who create policies and who do things that literally do kill people. For instance, a Congressional Committee last month released these figures. They wanted to find out how many Americans die every year because, simply from the fact, that they don’t have health insurance. They didn’t go to the doctor ‘cos they didn’t have insurance. Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year simply because they don’t have health insurance. My friends, that is fifteen 9/11s every single year! A system, a system that is set up to harm our own citizens! A profit-making insurance system! Who said that it is morally correct to make a profit off people when they get sick? Do ya, how, how sick is that? I can tell you—”
Audience Member (male): “Neocolonialism!”
Michael Moore: “How much money—”
Audience Member (male): “Free America!”
Michael Moore: “—has corporate America made from these two wars? These two illegal, immoral wars? How much have they made? We are still spending over $2 billion dollars a week on these wars. What could we do with that money if it was here in Oakland and Flint, Michigan and across the country? Somebody asked me, coming in here, ‘Who organised this?’
Scattered Members of Crowd: “We did!!”
Michael Moore: “Who organised this? I know, I know, I know you think we, the people, organised it, right. [Laughs] Where is Wells Fargo? I just passed it on the street. If you want to know who organised this, they organised it! The people on Wall Street organised this! Bank of America organised this! ExxonMobil, BP organised this! They did more by simply putting their boot on the necks of millions of Americans. And like any human being, like any human being, how long can you keep a boot on your neck?”
Audience Member (male): “Not one more second, we ain’t takin' it no more!!!!”
Michael Moore: “Not for one second with the boot on the neck.”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Audience Member (male): “Go, ‘head, Mike.”
Audience Member (male): “Oakland style, brotha.”
Michael Moore: “[Laughs] I know. He said, 'It’s Oakland style. We’re doing this Oakland style.’”
Audience Member (male): “Occupy!”
Michael Moore: “Let me tell you something else I’ve discovered across the country. Um, and that is, um, America, contrary to what maybe many here believe and the way it’s portrayed to us in the media, America is not a conservative country. Most Americans are actually quite liberal in their beliefs. They may not call themselves liberals, but if you look at any of the polls, the majority of Americans, come down on the liberal side of the issue on just about every single issue. The majority of Americans are against these wars. The majority of Americans want universal health care. The majority of Americans believe women should be paid the same as men. The majority of Americans—”
Audience Member (female): “That’s because they are the majority!”
Michael Moore: “—want stronger environmental laws, not weaker ones.”
Audience Member (male): “School closures! School closures!”
Michael Moore: “And for the first time last month, in a poll that was taken, for the first time 54%, the majority of Americans, say they believe gay marriage should be the law of the land.”
Audience Member (male): “…legalise marijuana!”
Michael Moore: “That’s the country you live in. That’s the, that’s the country you live in. And I know to people in the Bay Area it may seem to get a little scary as you head toward Richmond.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Did I pick the right town?”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “I need another town. What? As you head towards Walnut Creek!”
Crowd: “Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “I was, I was just trying to remember BART stops. Um. Can I just put that down there? ('Yeah. I got you.') Um, but as you go, as you go across this country you see that that’s the country you share, the people out there. That’s why they’re int-, that’s why 72% last week said they believe taxes should be raised on the rich, 72%. So—“
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “So, to the media who are here, um, this is a few thousand people. But everybody here represents a few thousand more, or a few ten thousand more, everybody here. That’s how large this is. That’s why it can’t be stopped. Too many people have been thrown out of their homes. Too many people have had their schools decimated to where their kids aren’t getting a proper education.”
Audience Member (male): “Five schools are being shut down in Oakland!”
Michael Moore: “We now live in a country with 40 million adults who are functional illiterates. How did that happen?”
Audience Member (male): “We’re being oppressed!”
Michael Moore: “It benefits, it benefits those in charge to have an ignorant population. To have a population with 40 million people in it that cannot read and write above a fourth-grade level. Who benefits from that? It’s like they’ve set up the schools now to make sure that you can operate the cash register at McDonald’s and you know how to greet someone in a sentence with a noun and a verb in it as they come into Walmart. Let me tell you, let me tell ya who does know that this, that the people of this country have had it and that there’s a very progressive thread and vein going through this country right now. That’s the other side, Wall Street, corporate America, the right-wing, they know, they know this is a liberal country! All you have to do is turn on talk radio or Fox News, they’re so angry, they’re so angry aren’t they? Let me ask you this. If this was a conservative, right-wing country, wouldn’t, if you turned on Fox News every night, wouldn’t they just be, ‘Yip-a-dee-do-da, Yip-a-dee-day?’ They’re not that way, are they? They’re like, ‘Aargh!’ Every night, it’s ‘Raargh! Raargh!’ They’re, they’re just, they, there’s a reason why they wanna suppress the vote next year. There’s a reason why they’re passing laws throughout the country to make it harder for poor people, for senior citizens, for people of colour to vote. There’s a reason they’re doing that. What’s the reason? They know, they know, no, it’s very simple, they can do math. They know they’re in the minority. They know they’re in the minority. Otherwise, really, why would you wanna suppress the vote if you thought America agreed with you? You wouldn’t do that, would you? No! If you believed, if you believed that America was with you, you’d be setting up voting booths in every aisle of every Walmart all across the country!”
Crowd: “Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “That’s not what they’re doing. Um, I also want to tell you, especially those of you who have been camping out here, um, thank you for doing that. You are better; you are better men and women than I am. Give me another year without the red meat. ‘Wait, we’ve got our second sound bite.’ Um, but watching the other night, um, [long pause] Scott Olsen.”
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “It is absolutely criminal that this young man was willing to go and risk his life in a war that he, once over there, didn’t agree with, that he would risk his life like this and the only place he had to worry about was here in his own country, in Oakland, California. Um, I think, um, well one thing we can do for the media who are here is to let them know that we are all Scott Olsen. We are all with Scott Olsen! And we are all Scott Olsens! And we will not tolerate our fellow citizens being treated that way by the people that we fund with our tax dollars. I don’t, I don’t pay people, I don’t pay people to take a gun, or a tear gas gun and point it at me and hit me in the head with their ammunition or their tear gas canister. That would be as crazy as me coming up to you right now and saying to you, ‘Oh, by the way, would you just punch me in the face?’ Why would I do that? Um, I think all of us want to send our best wishes, our prayers, our good karma, everything that we could muster to Scott, so that he is better and well. And, yeah, and I think, I think that, uh, let’s have 30 seconds of silence in honour of Scott Olsen and our hope that he will recover quickly from his injuries. Um, I’m goin’ on too long here and, uh, I—”
Crowd: “Nah!!!”
Michael Moore: “Well, well, yeah, but. No, no, but I—”
Audience Member (male): “You gotta get to Richmond!”
Michael Moore: “I know. Now that I’ve, now that I’ve singled out Richmond, I’m going to have to go and participate in Occupy Richmond.”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!!”
Michael Moore: “Or Walnut Creek.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Walnut Creek is where we need to be, right? Isn’t that where the money is? Alright.”
Crowd: [Scattered shouts and appeals]
Michael Moore: “Um, I, I, I understand that Mayor Quan is, uh, she’s finishing up her press conference. And I am gonna try and, uh, see if I can, uh, talk to her. Uh, you know, I saw her, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that when she came yesterday to talk that she didn’t wait to speak at the General Assembly because I, I think the, uh, well, there’s a, there’s a process, we’re not in a General Assembly right now. But there’s a process at the General Assembly where you sign up to speak and we’re all equals. You know? When I’ve, when I’ve been down, you know, I’ve been at New York, so I’ve been at Occupy Wall Street and if I’m number 17 to speak, I’m number 17 to speak. And it doesn’t matter if I’m Michael Moore or Michael Schmoe. You know. It doesn’t, and, and it’s the spirit, that’s why this movement has built because it is a movement of equals. Everybody has something to give to this. We’re all in this together. We’re gonna sink or swim together. That’s our choice right now. When, when they, when I was there last night, somebody asked one of the people in the media tent, ‘What are the goals? What are you trying to accomplish?’ And he said, well, he said, ‘Our mission is in our name, Occupy Wall Street,’ and then he said, ‘Period.’ I thought about that for a second. Occupy Wall Street, period. In other words, it isn’t just about these encampments; it’s that we’re not stopping until we, the people, occupy our economy that runs this country! This is our economy! It’s our country! We’re the ones that have a say. And, and when somebody says to me, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘What’s the goal? What’s the end-game?’ And I say, ‘Well, let me tell you somethin’ first of all, we’ve already had a number of victories in our first six weeks. And let’s acknowledge those victories. Alright? Number one, number one, we have killed despair across the country. The despair that people were feeling, that despair is dissipating right now. This movement has killed apathy. People have got up off the sofa! They’ve turned off Dancing with the Stars! And gone out in the streets! This is a victory! There’s something very important we’ve done. Six weeks ago, what was all the media talking about? All the politicians in Washington? All the pundits? What was the, what was the national discussion that we weren’t part of that they determined? What were they talking about? The debt ceiling. The debt! The debt ceiling!! The deficit! We gotta reduce the deficit!! We gotta reduce the deficit!! Over and over and over all summer long! The debt ceiling! The deficit! The debt ceiling! The deficit! Can I ask you honestly? When’s the last time in the last few weeks you heard them talking about the debt ceiling? Or the deficit? When was the last time? This movement has shook down that bullshit discussion.”
Crowd: “Yeah!! Whoo!!!”
Michael Moore: “That is a huge victory. You have altered the national discussion. You have altered it! This is what people are talking about in every town, village, and city across America. Occupy Oakland!! Occupy New York!! Occupy San Francisco!! Occupy Grass Valley!! Occupy Walnut Creek!! Occupy Flint, Michigan!! Occupy everywhere!!! This is the discussion we’re gonna have!!! And we’re not ceding the discussion to anybody else!!!
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, in conclusion, in conclusion, um, I am—”
Audience Member (male): “Move your seat!”
Michael Moore: “—did you just yell at a disabled guy to move his cane?”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “They told me there were plants here from the police. Plain-clothes, plain-clothes officer, let me just remind you, when you yell too loud at a disabled person, ‘Put down the cane,’ we know who you are. But welcome! Welcome! Because police officers, you’re part of the 99%, too! They’ll be coming after you! They’ll be coming after your home and your health care and your children. There’s a number or towns, there’s a number of towns across this country that are behaving differently than Oakland. There are police departments and police unions, hang on, there are police departments and police unions across the country supporting the Occupy movements in their towns. Albany, New York, a beautiful example, the Governor told them to remove the people and the police said, ‘We don’t consider that part of the police work.’”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, the police do have a choice, even in Oakland. It’s still America, Oakland P.D. It’s a free country. You can join us. You can join us. You don’t have to join them. You don’t have to be here defending Wells Fargo and Bank of America and BP and everybody else! You can stand up for yourselves and everybody else! Alright. Um, so, please keep this alive here. I know there’s gonna be a lot of snow this winter.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Audience Member (male): “Not here!”
Michael Moore: “I wanna say one more thing about something I saw last week. Pete Seeger was, he had a concert, he did a concert up on the corner, it was he and Arlo and Tom Chapin and a few others. Um, he had a concert up at the corner of 95th and Broadway at Symphony Space in New York. And afterwards, they decided to march from Symphony Space down to Columbus Circle. That’s 36 blocks. Pete is 92 years old on, on two canes. On two canes he walked the entire way.”
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “And when we got to Columbus Circle and he was leading everyone, thousands of people, singing ‘This Land is Your Land.’ And he looked over and there were two New York City policemen singing along.”
Audience Member (male): “Fuck the police!”
Michael Moore: “Um, right—[Michael Moore passes the microphone to man behind him: “There’s good and bad police just like there’s good and bad people.]
Crowd: [Applause]
Michael Moore: “We are stronger than any rubber bullet or bean bag or tear gas canister. There’s too many of us. And what are they defending in the first place? A broken system in a country that has benefited the few at the expense of the many. The time for that to end is right now. And when the history of—”
Background: [A blast is heard in the distance, as Michael Moore flinches and turns around]
Michael Moore: “—when the history—”
Audience Member: “We’re from Oakland!”
Michael Moore: “[Laughs] You know how sad it is? He says, ‘We’re from Oakland we’re used to that.’”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “You shouldn’t be used to it. You know if you lived in any of the Weste-, other democracies, the one to the north of us, you know, you would never say a statement like that, ‘Oh, we’re used to that.’ You know, other people in other countries have decided to organise themselves differently. We can do that, too. And, don’t worry. For those of you who aren’t quite sure, who may just have stopped by to see this today and you’re wondering, ‘Yeah, but where’s this goin? I need to know more. I gotta figure this out.’ Don’t, don’t approach this like other movements from the past. Don’t approach it like a term paper. Um, just join in because the group itself, something will come out of this and it will be good. It will be good and generous to each other. So, everybody’s gotta come into this on some level. And we could make this happen. So, I just, the thing I want to say, before the, uh, sound effects truck, um, was that when the history of this movement, uh, is written about these first few weeks where—”
Audience Member (male): “Or filmed.”
Michael Moore: “No, it’s not going to fail.”
Crowd: “No, filmed.”
Michael Moore: “The what?”
Audience Member (female): “Just let him talk.”
Michael Moore: “What film? Oh, or filmed? Yes.”
Crowd: [Laughs]
Michael Moore: “Yeah. Are you making a film? No, I’m not making a film, no, no, no, no way. I’m not mak-, no, no, no. I’m sorry.”
Crowd: “[Applause] Whoo!”
Michael Moore: “I’m here as a citizen. By the way, haven’t I made those films? I was, uh—”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “I’ll tell you what I’m happy about and I have been a bit giddy and overjoyed these past few weeks because at the end of my last film I was pretty dejected, uh, if you did happen to see it. And I, and I didn’t, and I said at the end of the film as I was wrappin’ the crime scene tape around the New York Stock Exchange, um, that, uh, I just, really, I don’t know if I could keep doing this. I don’t know if I wanna make another film ‘cos I keep making these films and it’s, you know, when’s this gonna happen? When’s this gonna happen? And I said at the end of the film, ‘Let me know, audience, or people, when you wanna, when you wanna do something and I’ll do it with you.’ Um because, um, it’s, uh, it’s a little rough being the poster boy on Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, uh, everyday. And they can get away with it when it’s just the Michael Moore or Naomi Klein or even a number of great people that have been busy on this issue for many years. Um, but when there are a million Naomi Kleins or ten million Michael Moores they won’t know what the eff to do.”
Crowd: “Yeah! Whoo!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “So, and that’s why they’re confused right now. So, when the history of this movement is written this week in Oakland, California will go down as a watershed moment. People, people across America were disgusted by what they saw here, when average Americans trying to stand up and peacefully assemble, to be brutally savaged and attacked by the police department that they pay for! That, that, let me tell you, the footage, you’re here. Okay? You’re here. We’re out there. We’ve been watching. Millions have watched it. And millions have been inspired by you because the next night you didn’t go away! You came back!!”
Crowd: “Yay!! [Applause]”
Michael Moore: “You came back!! You were supposed to go away!!! You were supposed to go away!!! What are you still doing here??!! And then you came back today!!! And you’ll be here tomorrow!!! And I’ll be with you!!! Thank you very much!!! Occupy Oakland, thank you!!!!
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