02x01 - The Game Is Rigged

[bunniefuu]

Let me ask you:

What s happening in
this country? Who owns it?

Where's the money,
who took it?

- The Rochesters.
- Rochester?

You mean like in
the burbs here?

Oh, you're thinking small.

Do you ever feel like
all you do is work,

but never seem to get ahead?

I m thinking the money s in
the Cayman Islands and sh*t.

Yeah.
GM not paying anything.

Amazon not paying anything.

Stock markets like this,
and nobody here got stock!

How the ---- is the
stock market doing this?

And there s
nothing in here...

- [Laughing]
- Right?

Like the system is
set up for you to fail?

It doesn t make any sense!

There s a
record stock market.

Who the ---- s buying a car?

Look at my raggedy a*s sh*t,
I m not buying a car.

You re right.
It s a rigged game.

[Cheering]

For over 70 years,
our leaders have told us

one thing under the
bright lights...

The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility of
all public officials.

I care, we're trying.

We have it so
well under control.

Help is here, and we will
not stop working for you.

But for decades, America's
shadow government and

its powerful friends have spent
trillions of dollars on

an agenda that serves
their interests, not ours.

You guys paid for all this.

So when the sh*t
really hits the fan...

We're on our own.

This is not science fiction.

This is reality in
America right now.

Truth is, the rich and
powerful will do whatever

it takes to save themselves,

While The Rest Of Us Die.

[Helicopter chuff &
people shouting]

For years, nobody could
figure out how

Jeffrey Epstein afforded
so many luxuries.

A high school math teacher
who lied about his degree

and was fired for
poor performance.

And then fired again from his
job at an investment firm.

But behind these doors,
Epstein hobnobbed with

some of the richest and most
powerful people in the world.

Sheikhs from the Middle East.

Great intellectuals and
thinkers and businessmen.

Epstein sort of had like a
Svengali-like hold over

some of the,
you know, wealthiest,

most powerful businessmen
in the country.

And somehow,
this didn t change,

even after Epstein was
convicted for having sex

with teenage girls.

How did Epstein translate
this incredible access to

power into his
personal wealth?

Some speculate he secretly

worked for
intelligence agencies.

Others assumed he was
supplying rich old men with

underage girls for sex...

and getting paid to keep quiet.

But according
to some reports,

the secret to Epstein s vast
fortune is that he supplied

his mega-rich friends with
something they valued

more than sex

a way to avoid paying their
fair share of taxes.

The Epstein story s kind of
like covering the weather.

Sometimes it rains,
and when it does, it pours.

Yesterday was one
of those days.

Take Leon Black,

the controversial CEO of
one of Wall Street s most

lucrative investment firms.

His net worth?
More than $9 billion.

He once claimed he was being
extorted by a Russian model

whom he d given millions
over a five-year affair.

But what really shocked
people was his

business dealings with
Jeffrey Epstein.

The private equity billionaire,
Leon Black,

hired him to avoid
about $2 billion in taxes,

using something called a
grantor retained annuity trust.

A GRAT.

A GRAT is just part of an
arsenal of complex schemes,

like equity swaps and
offshore shell companies,

that the super wealthy
use to avoid

paying vast amounts of tax.

With cute names like
the Double Irish

with a Dutch sandwich.

The scheme works by
transferring your company s

intellectual property to
an Irish subsidiary that s

actually managed by
people in some other place,

like Bermuda.

And then, the IP is licensed
to another Irish company

that s actually in Ireland,
which sends everything to

another subsidiary
in the Netherlands,

which then sends everything
to an offshore tax haven

often on a beach where
the IRS can t touch it.

Easy Peasy.

It s all difficult to
understand.

And that s by design.

Which is why someone like
Leon Black might pay someone

like Jeffrey Epstein a
seemingly massive fee,

even by Wall Street
standards.

If you re gonna save
two billion dollars...

Ah, maybe paying 158 million

to save two billion is a
good investment.

Epstein was just one
small part of a vast

industry that exists
for the sole purpose of

helping some of the richest
people in America

avoid their fair share
of taxes.

It s all part of a
larger story...

of how the wealthy have used
their riches and power

to trick us all out of the
American dream...

rigging the system
so they always win,

while the rest of us lose.

The wealth defense industry is
the army of tax attorneys,

wealth managers,
accountants.

People who work with the
world s wealthiest families.

They're paid millions
to hide trillions.

They are the financial
butlers to the super rich.

Chuck Collins doesn t just
investigate this complex

world of hiding wealth.
It s an inherited skill.

My bologna has
a first name,

it s O-S-C-A-R.

He happens to be the great
grandson of Oscar Meyer.

I grew up in the
wealthiest 1%.

My great grandfather ran

a successful
meatpacking business.


here I am.

Now I made a decision in
my early 20s that I didn t

really want to benefit from
a system of dynastic and

inherited wealth.
What that did is

it gave me an insight into
this whole system.

And particularly how the
wealth defense industry,

which are often what
families considered the

trusted advisers
to the family,

are part of the enablers.

They re the fixers.

They re the ones that
wealthy families hire

to move their money to
the shadows.

So, one way to look at it is,
the wealthy would rather

spend money on their lawyers
than pay higher taxes.

If they can game the system,
if they can pay for lobbyists,

they re willing to
pay a lot.

So, it s not like the
rich don t want to pay.

They just don t want to
pay the federal government.

I guess they think the rest of
us should be paying taxes,

so they don t have to.

Facing elite armies of tax
attorneys and accountants,

the IRS realizes in the
early 2000s that they need

to come up with a
way to fight back.

We can think of as
a SEAL Team Six,

an elite unit of auditors to
go after the super wealthy.

But the wealthy move quickly
to disarm this new IRS unit

tasked with
getting their money.

They get their friends
in government to

go after the IRS, instead.

One of the things
that s happened over

the last 10 years is that
the capacity of the

Internal Revenue Service to do
oversight of the super-rich

has been decimated.

You re four times more
likely to be audited

if you use their
Earned Income Credit,

which is a tax provision
for low and middle income

households, than if
you re a super-rich person.

When you look at
who s audited,

the IRS is auditing EITC
claimants in the south.

More than 50% of Black
Americans live in the south.

So, why is it that we see
the Earned Income Tax Credit

getting so much
scrutiny from the IRS,

but not high income,
high wealth individuals?

Why? Because it s easier.

The typical Earned Income
Tax claimant doesn t have

a plethora of
lawyers on retainer.

They re an easy mark.

But the truth about
how much taxes

the wealthy avoid paying
is even more astounding

than most people realize.

I think that people had a
cynical, jaded sense that...

the ultra-wealthy
get away with it.

But, no one had
ever seen the numbers.

Tax information is among the
most closely guarded

secrets in America.

But in 2021, the news
site ProPublica revealed that

it had 15 years of tax
records for the wealthiest

individuals in the country.

I don t think anyone
really understood

that people like Jeff Bezos,

who s the richest
human being in the world,

or Elon Musk, who runs Tesla
and has been the second

richest person in the world,
could pay zero in taxes,

in federal income taxes
in recent years.

Elon Musk paid zero in 2018.

Jeff Bezos paid zero
federal income taxes

in two recent years.


Michael Bloomberg paid zero
in taxes in recent years.

George Soros did it.

And so, that was pretty
shocking in and of itself,

that they could literally
get their bill down to zero.

Perhaps the most
surprising thing is that for

the most wealthy people in
America the top 0.1%

the tax rates
don t seem to apply.

And while Washington debates

raising the tax
rate on the wealthy,

the super wealthy may as well
be living in outer space.

[Applauding]

We re essentially having a
debate that s an entirely

a non-sequitur.
We are fixated on rates.

Rates dominate
our conversation,

but we re really not
talking about

the essential
things that matter.

Earthlings say the only
two constants in life

are death and taxes.

But for billionaires,
there s only death.

Here s how that works.

If you re super wealthy,
you get to decide

what your income really is.

You simply choose
not to pay yourself,

leave your wealth alone
in your company

or your investments.

They sit on this
mountain of wealth.

It appreciates in value and,
they don t sell and

they don t spend down
their fortunes.

Instead, they borrow against
their fortunes to fund their

lifestyle or help their
business.

While for the rest of us,

borrowing means
going into debt,

for the uber-rich,
it s a way to sequester

their wealth from the IRS.

And then, they can
at the very end,

when they die they can
avoid the taxes at

the end of life, the estate tax.

And so, they are really
outside of the tax system.

Of course, wealthy
individuals aren t alone in

avoiding paying taxes.

In 2020, 55 of the richest
corporations in America

also got away with
paying zero taxes.

Well, we end up living
in a society where,

we the people,
pay for all of the

external costs of
the corporation.

So, McDonald s can give us
cheaper hamburgers because

we re paying for the roads
that its big trucks are

going back and forth on to
create a fast food empire.

And that s the way every
corporation tends to work.

They, they look at whatever s
gonna cost them money,

and they figure out
how to externalize that

to the public sector.

Where we end up in,

is a world with a
crumbling infrastructure.

With no social services...

Unable to pay for basic
medical care for people.

The government has
no money of its own.

Except what it takes
directly and indirectly

in levies and taxes from
every pay envelope.

Perhaps the strangest
part of this story is that

we did it to ourselves.

How did we become
convinced that

bankrupting our government
was good for us?

Even as bridges and
roads crumbled,

the costs of college
and housing exploded.

Wages flat lined,

and the middle class
began to disappear.

This film describes some
of the ways psychologists

conduct a
science of behaviour.

For much of this film, we will
study a simple response,

such as pecking
by a pigeon.

During World w*r II,

the Pentagon hired
behavioral psychologist

B.F. Skinner to launch a
series of experiments

called Project Pigeon.

The first rule for teaching
anything is to structure the

situation so that the
behaviour is likely to occur.

The military wanted him to
create pigeon-guided missiles.

So, he built these boxes
where he would put pigeons,

and there would
be the signs.

And the signs, the pigeons
would have to hit.

And then when
they hit those,

then eventually food
would come out.

You might define reading as the
ability to emit an appropriate

differential response
to written commands.

Actually, pigeons are capable
of good pattern discrimination.

And what he could
demonstrate is, very quickly,

this stimulus and reward
system would feed

the pigeons and they
would learn even these

stupid creatures could learn
exactly what they

needed to do to survive.

Well, that s exactly
the structure

we ve built for Congress.

[Skinner] Shaping consists of
reinforcing closer and

closer approximations
of the response

we wish to condition.

Sometimes, we used a nudge
or a kick under the table.

Just like the pigeons in
the Skinner box experiments

learned which buttons they
needed to push to get the

sustenance they
needed to eat, so too,

Congress people
learn which buttons they

need to push to get the
sustenance their campaigns

need to survive.

And what politicians
need most to survive

is money to fuel their
next campaign.

This Congress in the United
States spends anywhere

between 30 and 70 percent of its
time raising campaign money.

But it doesn t raise money
from the average American.

It raises money from a tiny,
tiny fraction of the 1%.

[Skinner] They have become
conditioned reinforcers,

and they can exert a great deal
of control over behaviour.

And if that tiny fraction
objects to anything Congress

might want to do,
it s extraordinarily hard

to get Congress to do it.

Our subjects are available
when we need them.

So, when any major issue,
like g*n safety legislation

or health care reform or
the minimum wage comes up,

the question is whether
these funders oppose it or not.

And if they oppose it,
it s not gonna happen.

The presentation of an
aversive stimulus

is called punishment.

It s simple. He who pays the
piper calls the tune.

How did we get here?

To a system where the
rich and powerful steer

our government into
serving them,

instead of the people
who elected it?

[g*nf*re]

To answer that, you have
to go back to the 1970s.

The Vietnam w*r is raging,

and there are protests
in the streets.

There s also a rising movement
of consumer protection.

The abuses are flagrant.

Hotdogs made of
substandard meat.

Toothpastes that
don t prevent cavities.

Ralph Nader is taking on
the big car companies...

Testifying here
this morning, Mr. Nader,

I think it s a tribute that
I don t have to

take the time to
introduce you.

If you ll just proceed.

Saying that they re
making unsafe cars and

they re profiting at the
expense of people s safety.

[Screeching &
glass shattering]

And there is a rising
environmental movement.

The public begins to demand
their representatives in

government fix the problems
and government responds.

President Nixon
creates the EPA.

Congress passes the
Clean Air and Water Acts.

And other governmental
agencies step in to begin

imposing new health and safety
regulations on big business.

So, you re beginning to
get a great pushback,

and the corporate captains
who have been making

tons of money and feeling like
they sort of rule society...

[Bang]!

Are thrown back
on their heels.

Enter Lewis F. Powell.

So, Lewis Powell
was a kind of a big deal.

Virginia lawyer, represented
big corporations,

especially Big Tobacco.

In 1971, there s a paper
written by Lewis Powell,

who would later be a
Supreme Court justice.

And he warns
corporate America,

you better fight back
because you re gonna lose

your place in society.

The confidential paper becomes
known as the Powell Memo.

Even to this day, I find
that people are amazed

when they hear about it...

because it is like
a document that

would exist in a
fictional account.

Powell argues that corporate
America is under an

unprecedented attack and
is losing its grip on

the levers of power.

The memo presents a
detailed battle plan

for how to
secretly get it back.

Everybody from Ralph Nader
to h* Chi Minh were

freaking him and his
circle out, like:

"Oh, my God,
what s happening ?

He basically said: "Look,
if we don t organize to

defend business against
populist regulation,

America as we know it
is going to disappear .

[Coughing]

Powell warns that the right
needs to launch a

shadow campaign to
influence academia,

sway the courts,
and fight back against

liberal voices in the media.

It s like this call to arms
of corporate America.

For much of the 70 s,
the public sees

elected officials as something
like their lawyer

the place to go to get a
local river cleaned up

or an unsafe car recalled.

There is padding here,
presumably might reduce the

possibility of getting your
teeth broken if you hit it.

But for Powell s
memo to work,

that needs to change.

And by 1980, that relationship
between the public

and their government
will come under attack.

[Laughing]

- Thank you very much.
- [Applause]

Skyrocketing inflation and
slow growth produce a

new phenomenon in America:
they call it stagflation .

Millions are struggling
more than they ve had to

in a generation.

And suddenly, a lot of
Americans are receptive to

the idea that big
government is to blame.

All of this sets the stage
for a presidential candidate

who will echo
Powell s call to arms.

[Applause]

And then he took another
crack at the American people

and said that we had
inflation because you and I

were living too well.

You and I living too well is
not the cause of inflation.

We have inflation because
government is living too well.

[Cheering & applause]

I, Ronald Reagan...

But when it comes to getting
people to lose faith

in government,
Ronald Reagan may not be

the most significant
candidate in 1980.

Almost completely
unnoticed at the time

is the Libertarian Party s
campaign.

Running as that party's
Vice Presidential candidate,

is a little-known Kansas
businessman named David Koch.

With his brother, Charles,
working in the background.

...I never grow tired of
bragging about that.

They re running from
the right against Reagan.

They consider Reagan too
much of a sellout liberal.

There s an enormous
antagonism now in the

American population
towards big government,

which is unresponsive,
uncaring,

and yes, even repressive.

The Koch s don t just
want to get big government

out of the way of
corporate America.

They seem to want to get
rid of all government,

including ending the minimum
wage and cancelling

social programs like social
security and Medicare.

None of it is popular.

They get nowhere.

David Koch spent something
like $2 million of his own money

on his own campaign,

and they get a tiny
percentage of the vote.

It s a super flop.

David Koch s ideals
are rejected by voters.

So, privately, he begins
crafting a plan to reshape

American politics and rig the
system to favor the wealthy.

And so, they go back
to the drawing board.

And they think:
Ok, if we want to take over

American politics,
we re not gonna be able to

do it democratically.
We can t win the votes.

They want to own
the politicians.

In order to avoid taxes,

the Koch brothers
have been making large

philanthropic donations
to charities for years.

They realize at some point that
they can create their own

charities, and they will call
them private foundations.

And these will become
sort of treasury chests

for their own personal
favorite projects.

So, what they re spending
on is pushing their

personal political beliefs,
which in the case of the Kochs,

were extraordinarily
right wing.

With this new strategy,

the Kochs divert money
from the public purse

by pouring hundreds of
millions into

think tanks and
political organizations,

all geared at influencing
the government to serve the

interests of people
with wealth.

But none of these organizations
are as effective at

pushing their personal
agenda as ALEC.

It sounds kind of friendly,
you know.

It s like that guy
you know, Alec.

But actually,
it stands for the

American Legislative
Exchange Council.

And it is a really
conservative organization

that works at the state
level to change policy.

Here s how it works.

Let s say a credit card
company wants to change

state law to make it easier
for a collection agencies to

go after bad debts.

Rather than go state-to-state
and try to get a law passed,

which is expensive and
time consuming,

ALEC will
do the work for you.

ALEC has created a
pay-to-play system,

whereby big corporations can
join the organization and

become paying members on
the legislative committee.

A corporation will help
write a bill and then ALEC

will replicate that bill and
transmit it to conservative

members in state legislatures
around the country.

Some folks back home decided
they wanted a law passed so

they called their local
congressman and he said:

You re right, there ought
to be a law.

We re raised thinking that,
we the people,

drive the bus
and there we are,

we the people,
turning the steering wheel.

But it turns out
the steering wheel is

disconnected from
the wheels on the bus.

Doesn t matter
which way we turn it,

the bus is gonna go the
direction the bus is gonna go.

And it turns out the
direction the bus is gonna go

is the direction that the
economic elite or

organized special
interest groups want,

not the average voter.

Owning politicians was
only part of the plan.

To become truly powerful,
the captains of corporate

America need to trick the
public into abandoning

the American Dream.

Before the 1980s, the CEOs
of the biggest companies in

America earned about
thirty times the salary

of the average worker.

The CEO of the
company lived in the

same town with the
workers of the company.

His kids went to the
same school as the

kids of the workers
in the company.

It was more like a
family business, really,

where the object of the
game is not to earn

enough money to bequeath it
to your kid as a trust fund.

The idea was to have a
company that s

successful enough that it s
still there and thriving,

so your kid s gonna
want to work at it.

You wanted your workers and
your customers to like you,

like Macy s, so you d
give them fireworks!

You give them a parade!

You contribute
to the hospital,

and you do these things so
that they re nice to you!

So that they like your kid.

They have to see you kind of
as a friend of the community.

But, this was the time when
the CEO was making 10, 20,

maybe 100 times more than
the janitor in the company.

Where now, the CEO is making
thousands of times

more than the worker
in the company.

And, and he s not living
anywhere near those workers.

The object of the game,
winning,

means setting yourself
apart from this company.

They re the suckers.
You re the winner!

And you re relating instead,

you re relating to
your shareholders.

You re relating to
the board of directors.

You re in this other world.

And you see your

employees and your customers
kind of in the same light.

It s like those are
the peasants.

My view, is I don t even like
the phrase work-life balance.

Some people come
into the meeting,

and they add
energy to the meeting.

Other people come
into the meeting,

and the whole
meeting just deflates and

those people just, they, they
drain energy from the meeting.

As the wealth of CEOs
continues to reach new heights,

the average American
employee is working

harder and longer
and for less.

Because for decades,
corporate America

had a plan to
make it that way.

GE!

WE BRING GOOD
THINGS TO LIVING!

WE BRING GOOD
THINGS TO LIFE

At GE, we re in the
business of...

In 1981, a chemical engineer
named Jack Welch

takes the helm of
General Electric,

with big plans for the
company that is

already a household
name in America.

What he did was,
he decided one day,

that he makes less money
selling a washing machine

to someone, than he does
lending the money

to the person to buy the
washing machine.

Because, when he makes
a washing machine,

he s got to buy the metal
and the glass and

the workers and their
insurance and all that.

And he makes some profit.
But when he lends money

to someone to buy
the washing machine,

he gets pure interest!

The new thing is,
you should try to

get out of your
productive industries

as quickly as possible and
get into financialization.

And everybody went:
"You know, you re right".

Anybody who s
actually making something,

or providing a service,
they re in the suckers game!

People that go into
financial services,

they re the ones who are
making pure money.

WE BRING GOOD
THINGS TO LIFE!

So, he sold off all
his productive assets.

All the American companies

started sending
everything overseas.

And that changed the
way we think of business.

Perhaps the most
influential and imitated,

not to mention,
controversial corporate CEO

of the last half century

As American industry
begins a transformation

in the 1980s, so, too,
do the CEOS.

As figures like Jack Welch
and Lee Iacocca at Chrysler

start focusing on making
the most profit

instead of
the best products,

they are greeted
like corporate heroes.

In more than half a century
the big business titans

hadn t been so
celebrated and so treated

as quasi-fictional characters.

It was remarkable.

This kind of kind of breathless
kind of movie star adoration

that, that you began
seeing in the 1980s.

Welcome to television s
unchallenged authority

on wealth,
prestige and success.

In the 1980s, Americans
new obsession with affluence

fills the airwaves with
TV shows like Dallas and

Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous.

Meet the stars of show
business and big business.

Discover how
life s winners live,

love and spend
their fortunes.

I m bored.

MASTERCARD!

And even as the standard of
living begins to flat line

for middle class Americans,
a new American Dream is

being marketed that says you
can live the lifestyle of

the rich and famous
using two magical words,

charge it.

- I bought my skis in Aspen.
- No, Switzerland.

THIS IS THE DAWN.

THE DAWN OF DISCOVER.

As Americans are being
seduced with the benefits

of paying with plastic...

In this world where
you re always

reaching for something better

Groups like ALEC are helping to
get credit card companies

deregulated, removing any legal
limit on their interest rates.

Because the higher you aim,

the bigger the
payoff should be.

It should be, and it is,
with the Discover card.

Within 25 years, the average
American s debt quadruples.

And the corporate elites
selling the updated dream

are the only ones
getting richer.

We can t have this
discussion without mentioning

the Oliver Stone movie,
Wall Street,

here is this
extraordinary monologue

by Michael Douglas
playing Gordon Gekko,

giving that pitch.

Greed for lack of a
better word is good.

Greed is right.
Greed works.

And even though Gordon Gekko
was ostensibly the

villain of that piece,
he really wasn t.

- Thank you very much.
- [Applause]

I saw that movie in a theater
on the Upper East Side.

And there were a lot
of people applauding,

along with the actors in the
movie applauding.

Only this new and improved
America is anything but.

The so-called
Reagan revolution?

The one that got citizens
to turn on their government?

It left the wealth of
corporate captains soaring

while the wages of
workers flat lines.

Minimum wage stagnates.

And job security
all but disappears.

At General Electric,
Jack Welch realizes

that in this newly
financialized landscape,

cutting costs are the
key to raising

the value of the company.

And his personal wealth.

And he transformed
all of GE into a

brutally honest meritocracy,

in which every employee is
ranked from the very top

down to the
bottom ten percent.

Brutally honest meritocracy
is GE speak for

ruthlessly firing employees,
earning Welch the nickname

Neutron Jack.
But he was hardly alone.

Instead of innovating
new products,

financial innovation
becomes the preoccupation

of corporate America.

By any means necessary,
get stock value up.

For all they care companies
could be producing nothing,

or losing money, or whatever.
It doesn t matter.

The stock price is all
we care about.

The financialized landscape
of America gives rise to

a new way of thinking.

The CEOs view the world
through a lens

that s fundamentally different.

And that s important
because they drift off

into their own kind of
fantasy world of, like,

self-driving cars, and
everything s gonna be okay.

When in fact, the society
that they re creating is

sinking into deeper
and deeper crisis.

The story we were all sold
was that the free market and

financialization
would make us all rich.

That greed is good.

Instead, it turns out
that the wealth of corporate

America has been built
on systemic poverty.

If you re living on
the average person s income,

that hasn t
risen in 50 years.

It s the same as it
was in the 70s, essentially.

But now you have to pay
thousands of percent more...

for the basics.

Child care, education,
health care, retirement.

What does that do?
That leaves you in debt.

The average American
now dies in debt.

The old implicit bargain that
really built consensus,

you play by the rules
and you work hard,

you re gonna have
a decent life.

But that was really
dependent on there

being jobs that produced
valuable products.

And therefore, could...

afford to pay good wages
to these workers.

When the productive base was
automated and then

hollowed out and shipped to
low wage parts of the world,

that meant that, that
route to a decent

working class life
was foreclosed.

What have four decades of
corporate greed done to the

American dream today?

Every town s got this.

It s just,
we re a spectacle.

----ing look at it.
It's not normal.

This is Detroit.

Just half a century ago,

it was the richest
city in the world.

The reason we re sensitive
about it is because

we lived in it.

You know, our grandpas
were working in it.

We re

It still hurts.

And I m telling you,
the rest of the country,

I'm telling you:
we were the spiritual,

mechanical, and financial
center of this country.

Look at us.

You think you re
immune to it?

Many things
happened in Detroit.

Greed, management greed,
union greed.

The financial crisis.
Globalization.

Foreign competition.

Laziness, on our part.
Race problems.

But what really
k*lled it was Wall Street.

That s what really, really
pushed it over the edge.

Like a stout heart
within the city,

is Detroit Industry, which has
put the world on wheels.

Cars once built Detroit

and Detroit drove
America s prosperity.

Now the city is a
shell of its former self.

From a population of
nearly 2 million to 650,000.

And enough empty
lots to fill all of

Manhattan and San Francisco.

Charlie LeDuff is a

Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist

who quit his job at the
New York Times

to write
about his hometown.

Because Detroit is in many
ways the story of America.

A story of what financial
greed leaves in its wake.

[Indistinct speaking]

Dan Gilbert owns
that building,

he owns that building,
he owns that building.

He owns that building.
He owns that building.

Meet Dan Gilbert,
a Detroit businessman

who founded a private
mortgage company

in the 80s called
Quicken Loans.

By the 2000s, Quicken Loans
had grown into

the largest online
lender in America.

And by the time the 2007
financial meltdown

came around,
Detroit was ground zero

for the housing collapse.

Nearly 3/4 of all mortgages
in the city were of the

risky and suspect
subprime variety.

Back in the day when we
bundled the mortgages,

and they were
giving them to pigs.

You know what I mean?
Dead people.

Nonexistent people.

And they were bundling them
into financial instruments.

Dan Gilbert, said you know,
from Quicken Loans, said:

I never sold
subprime mortgages .

So, I know the people at
the office of registrar.

I got 1600 mortgages
originated by Quicken Loans.

Took a random sample of
the beautiful mortgages

that he issued.

Within 10 years,
half of them went belly up,

and half of the ones that
went belly up were either

stripped, burned,

or occupied by squatters.

The financial meltdown in 2007
was caused in great part by

the greed of financial
institutions

like Quicken Loans.

Offering easy mortgages and
the promises of a decent life,

even though that life
had become unaffordable.

And when those
loans collapsed,

so did Detroit.

But not the
financial institutions.

The Justice Department settles
its case against Quicken,

which never
admits to wrongdoing.

While their borrowers
pack up and vacate their

now foreclosed homes,
Quicken not only survives,

but then thrives
by going public.

A multi-billion dollar IPO,
and I m told it will be

one of the largest,
if not the largest IPO,

in the US this year.

The sale made Dan Gilbert the


...We think, if the check
cleared, Jim

But Gilbert s business
dealings in Detroit

didn t stop with Quicken Loans.

We re very, very proud to
have the opportunity

to own this, this property here.

Gilbert takes advantage
of the fire sale prices

he helped ignite to spend
billions buying nearly a

hundred properties in a city
decimated by risky lending.

He owns this block.
He owns that building.

He owns the building
behind this building.

He s gonna own
this skyscraper.

Wow.

Dan Gilbert had a little
incentive for purchasing

so much Detroit property.

Where s Dan?
Where s Dan Gilbert?

Gilbert, who donated
$750,000 to Trump s

inaugural fund, seemed
close to the president,

and his family.

Great friend of mine,
supporter, and great guy.

And that is perhaps why
he and a handful of other

billionaires were first in
line to benefit from

a 2017 Trump tax break.

It was sold to the
American people

as a way to attract
investment in poor communities.

But in truth, it provided
a loophole for people like

Gilbert to sink billions
into empty office towers

in downtown Detroit.

While ignoring the poorer,
majority-Black areas

surrounding downtown where
people grapple with

one of the highest
crime rates in America.

Detroit still has a poverty
rate several times the

national average, and 20
square miles of empty lots

full of abandoned buildings.

Every town s got this.

It s just we re a spectacle.

We re a ----ing spectacle.

We were number one.
Not New York,

not L.A., not Philly.

Us!

It s easy to look at, and go:
Haha, look at these guys.

Laugh if you want,
but you are Detroit.

But what happens when the
rich and corporate America

have finally gutted it all, and
there s nothing left to take?

You look at the,
the banks, and theaters,

and arenas of the


These are like palaces!

This is a beautiful,
booming place.

And it wasn t just
because it was growing,

but because the growth,
the economic activity

was based in physical reality.

When you have an
entirely abstracted economy,

you see it s much
more like New York.

Where, now you
have these crazy,

bizarre luxury
towers sprouting out,

and up out of the landscape.

These towers that,
you can visualize them,

they re extracting the
value out of the city, itself.

And removing it
up into the sky.

And people don t even
live in these apartments.

These apartments are
basically like bonds.

They re like
stock certificates.

They re these empty boxes
that represent




But they re not
living places.

They are bizarre
pockets of abstracted value.

They're trapped.
It s like gas bubbles.

You know, it s not real.

[Rumbling]

For decades, we allowed
the wealthy to live

in an economic stratosphere.

Leaving the rest down on
earth to pick up the tab.

If I go to the average
middle and working class

American and say:
Hey, buddy,

you re already paying 20 percent
of your income in taxes.

And guess what?

Jeff Bezos isn t paying
anything and Mark Zuckerberg

isn t paying anything.

And, you know, Amazon.com
paid less taxes than...

[laughing]
than you did even though

it s the world s
most valuable corporation .

And I go to that poor guy
and I say: But guess what?

Despite all that, your tax
rate still has to rise

if you want a functioning
society, he ll look at me

like I m crazy.

And he s right to do so
because he doesn t have

the money to pay more taxes.

He doesn t have the money to
pay more taxes because

he s already living on the edge.

Living on the edge because

the wealthy conspired
to make it that way.

To rig the system so
they could win

by making the rest of us poor.

But as the corporate leaders
were busy dismantling the

American dream so their
profits could reach

new heights, did they see
where it was all leading?

What they don t realize is
if you take all the money

off the table,
you can t earn anymore!

There s no more circulating!

You ve made your
potential customers poor.

You ve made your
potential employees

poor and uneducated.
And then you complain!

Agh, there s
nobody buying my stuff!

There s no one smart
enough to work!

It s because you took
everything away.

There s no public school,
you know,

then what s gonna
happen to your workforce?

They re doing to America

what they used to do to
China and Africa.

They used to do it
to other people,

and it was bad enough
doing it to other people.

The reason why you see some,
some progressive awakening

in America is because
American citizens

are realizing: Oh, my gosh!

This thing that corporations
used to do to all these

people in Central
America and Africa,

they re doing it to us !