Questions on the subjects of Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine

Son, please read this quote from the main IMDb page regarding "Roger & Me"

"Moore tries to create a montage here reminiscent of 'JFK'. While Stone modified the truth for the sake of cinema, Moore twists reality for no gain other than selfishness. He loves highlighting the stupidity of others. Watch the reactions of the indifferent individuals he interviews."

Like this writer says, he is nothing more than a journalist.

IMO he has gotten worse. Lackluster ability to create a "documentary". Totally selfish "all about himself" attitude in these films---the king of self promotion. Its like he feeds off of it. I hear he's coming out with a new film to knock down the big drug manufacturers (legal drugs co's like Pfizer...). This companies SPEND BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars towards RESEARCH every year. Yes, they RESEARCH what they are doing. I don't want to get too off topic but these pharmacutical companies work so hard trying to make a difference that whining scumbags like Moore folly them. They whine that the "prices are too high". Well boo-hoo. Shall I quote myself, "BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars towards RESEARCH" ONLY to have a crap 3rd world country duplicate them and sell them for 1/10 the cost. Moore crys about that; preaching that he is there to help us...whats next? Go over and lobby for the Chinese to make more illegal copies of DVD's? Well hey, its cheaper.

Son if you follow ANYONE with a video camera and have a dirty agenda, you'll find querks with everyone. You, me, GW Bush. Think about it this way; if I followed you around with a cam 24/7/365, you're going to make some silly mistakes in public (i.e. pick your nose, cuss, freudian slips, fart, screw up talking). Come on, be real here. Do you ever watch The Daily Show? All they do is screw with people and set them up for hilarious disaster.

The difference bwtn The Daily Show and Moore is that Tbe Daily Show is just for short term memory humor---just for laughs and that Moore passionately and seriously belives that he will sway public opinion. Look at the sick man; he is a vile and disgusting beast.

Moore---hire a personal trainer. Maybe if you took your own body seriously people might believe your misleading outcrys.

Flint,Michigan? OMG, BIG FREAKIN DEAL. Ever drive down to Detroit? Westside? OMG, he should take a walk into Sinai-Grace Hospital on Outer Drive & Greenfield. Detroit gets like 350 murders a year. Theres your problem. If he's gonna rant about his hometown, look at that.

Moore has NO technique and style. I know the internet is full of opinionated "facts" but search both sides. I want you to review web sites (just pray that they have some truthful info) that have info regarding positives and negatives. Please pay attention to the negative things you hear. After reading the "facts", print them out. Now that you have paid attention to both sides, sit down and watch all three of his flops,eh hem, I mean movies. Watch one movie at a time but prepare yourself beforehand with your positive and negative notes & studying. You will kick out your answer quick. Essay writing is NOTHING. I used to have trouble kicking out just a page. I just typed this without delay. Its 5am EST and I have to be at work at 7am...I haven't slept in two days. Just open your mind, try to stick to the point and---------follow the damn rules of the essay; thats all the teach cares about (restate thesis at end bs...blah blah).

Good luck.

I am quoting this from member "Dwight B". Look how he divides up the points of views and speaks for them accordingly. This is good stuff. Basically tell it as it is. And yes, I hate unions especially the IAFF.

"It's very simple: if companies overpay employees to do what can be done cheaper, then the competition will do it cheaper and put you out of business. I know it sounds cruel because it ignores the 'human' aspect, but it's an undeniable business truth.

The company's point of view:
In this case, if GM continued to overpay for union/Michigan labor (which is more expensive than exporting the jobs and poorer quality than automation) then GM would go out of business and America would lose a LOT more than the 30,000 jobs in Flint. As the vilified GM executive explains in his interview in 'Roger & Me', the business of GM is to make money (and survive) not to be nice. Obviously there is no point in going to extremes here; a happy employee is a more effective worker (hopefully), so businesses should be naturally inclined to take care of their workers. But when union wages force companies to be FAR less profitable, the company has no choice but to export jobs or replace them with automation to be more profitable or stay in business. One could claim that the company could accept being less profitable in order to save jobs and help people. Although this is true, it hinders some of the natural and necessary evolution of the company. If GM can't learn to be more slim and run more efficiently and save up profits for a rainy day when the economy gets tough they would easily be put out of business. You could even argue that GM resisted this evolution for a long time and should've gotten rid of these employees in the late 70s and early 80s to be competitive with the Japanese auto manufacturers. They were nice to the employees and kept them around ten years longer than they should've- finally they were losing the war and had to lay all these people off as a last resort.

The shareholders point of view:
As a stockholder in GM one should expect the company to do everything it can to maximize profits, after all the shareholder essentially loaned them money when they bought the stock, GM owes it to them to make money. If GM refuses to be more profitable the stockholders can just sell their shares and buy stock in a better company (Ford, Toyota, etc.). This essentially loans more money to a company that knows how to work efficiently (by not overpaying for labor) and makes them even more capable of putting a company like GM out of business. What does this lead to... you guessed it, the unemployment of Flint and all GM employees. So in order to please the shareholders and stay in business, GM was forced to evolve and become more efficient, this meant that people lost their jobs, but look its better for 30,000 to lose jobs that hundreds of thousands.

The workers point of view:
As a worker we all should maximize our value. This means that we should get an education, gain skills, or do whatever it takes to make ourselves valuable. When a union steps in and allows people that generally have no skills to get paid as much as those that have skills, there is an imbalance in the labor market. What this means is that someone else is willing to do that same job for far less money (whether that someone else is in another country is irrelevant these days). These imbalances eventually become regulated by competition. A competing company will find a way to use the non union labor, lowering the price of their product and putting the union company out of business. This is happening today between supermarkets and Wal-Mart or Costco. Because supermarkets are paying for unskilled union labor to pack bags and run cash register for $15 - $30 an hour Costco and Wal-Mart have decided to move into those areas and pay far less and then charge customers less. Obviously the customers want to pay less and go to the Costco and Wal-Mart and put the union stores out of business.
As for the employees in Flint; they should have gone to college, picked up skills or asked for lower wages. Instead they put all their eggs in one basket and paid the price.

The consumers point of view:
As a consumer you want to buy the best product for the least amount of money. This is naturally going to push you away from GM in the 1980s. If you want to make a statement for the poor workers of Flint, go out and pay extra for a piece of junk car... I don't honestly expect you to do it and therefore you are just as responsible for the lost jobs.

My point of view:
I feel worse for the rabbits than I do for the people. People have the ability to think for themselves, to do research and realize that taking the 'easy way out' and getting a high-paying job low-skilled job is probably not going to work out in the long run. Rabbits don't have the luxury analysis and foresight; in this case they suffer because of the ignorance of people that should've known better. "