Corporations are people, my friend. What kind of people? You guessed it. Frank Stallone.
This video is almost unwatchable. It's so boring and slow. It'll say Koch heads want to remove minimum wage, then it counters this by saying how poor someone is. That's not a valid argument. Hating on rich people is not an argument either. A valid argument would be taking a trip to another country that has higher minimum wages and show that it hasn't destroyed their economy. The way Michael Moore makes films is the proper way to do this, and I'm pretty sure he has done that exact thing.
Also, some of the things in the video are factually incorrect, or at least partially incorrect, sort of. The video claims Social Security is not bankrupt because social security has a surplus of 2 trillion dollars. That's not completely true. When someone like you or I say we have $100 worth of government bonds, we mean that we have ownership of bonds that already exist, and these bonds can be sold in the open market. This is not how Social Security and various state pensions do accounting. When Social Security says there is a 2 trillion dollar surplus, what they mean is that they have government promises for 2 trillion dollars worth of bonds, so basically Social Security is holding a promise of a promise for cash. What's the difference? From an accounting perspective, the difference is huge.
This can best be explained by giving scenarios. Real bonds (what people think Social Security holds) vs fake bonds (what they actually hold).
Real Bonds:
If Social Security held real bonds, they would hold federal government debt that already exists. Suppose the federal government debt is 17 trillion dollars and Social Security needs money. No problem. When holding normal bonds, Social Security would be able to sell bonds in the open market to get the cash. Federal government debt would not be affected in any way.
Fake Bonds:
Suppose the federal government debt is 17 trillion. When Social Security needs money, they can't sell bonds in the open market because they don't hold any real bonds. To get that money, Social Security needs to go to the federal government. The federal government buys back some of the fake bonds held by Social Security. Our government hasn't had a meaningful surplus in half a century, so where does this money come from? It comes from new debt. To cash in that 2 trillion dollars, this can only be done if the federal government issues 2 trillion in new bonds, so the national debt goes up to 19 trillion.
I know it sounds absolutely retarded, and there's no way any sane person would think this was a good idea, but that really is how the system works. Lots of state pensions work the exact same way. Instead of the state contributing cash to the pension fund, the state contributes bonds that can't be sold in the open market. When the pension fund starts redeeming those bonds, it forces the state to issue huge amounts of debt, which leads to a budget crisis. This kind of fraudulent accounting is why Illinois is in deep trouble right now. Interestingly, zero people have gone to jail for accounting fraud.
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