Capitalism Hits the Fan

How Did the American Dream Turn Into the Nightmare on Wall Street? Watch This DVD and Find Out.
Capitalism Hits the Fan DVD: How Did the American Dream Turn Into the Nightmare on Wall Street?
By Richard Wolff
BuzzFlash.com's Review (excerpt)
"Capitalism Hits the Fan" is a DVD at its most basic (a lecture as if you were back in college) brimming with an electrifying explanation of how the "American Dream" evolved into the "Nightmare on Wall Street."

Our guide (lecturer) is economics Professor Richard Wolff of the University of Massachusetts. As much as we have read at BuzzFlash about the economic meltdown, Wolff shed a new comprehensive perspective on the Wall Street bubble (now bursted) at the expense of the decline of the middle class.

Wolff tautly strings together an economic theory (some of the observations with which we might differ)that offers a persuasive explanation of how Wall Street exploded by increasing our indebtedness as individuals and as a nation, at a time when wages remained stagnant.

Normally lectures (if you remember them from college) leave a lot of time for day dreaming, but Wolff's explanation is so timely and cogent that you won't want to break away. Beyond Wolff's final conclusion about worker-owned companies, he succinctly has built a case about why leaving the arsonsists on Wall Street in charge of putting out the fire that they started is an untenable strategy that will lead to even more economic implosion.

BuzzFlash is one of the few outlets that the Media Education Foundation(MEF) allows to sell their DVDs for home viewing at a much reduced price. (MEF mostly sells their DVDs to educational and public institutions at a much higher cost for large audiences.)

The relevant and trenchant analysis offered by Wolff more than compensates for the reality that the DVD is not a drama or comedy.

This is serious business, so to speak, and Wolff distills our economic dilemma into a scintillating 57 minutes of food for thought.

About the DVD from the Media Education Foundation:

"With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government "bailouts," stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis, in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes. Richly illustrated with motion graphics, this is a superb introduction designed to help ordinary citizens understand, and react to, the unraveling economic crisis."

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