During Mike's childhood years in the '50s, the richest paid a top tax rate of 90%.
Ronald Reagan opposed workers' rights.
Ronald Reagan opposed the feminist movement.
During the Reagan administration, major corporations laid off tens of thousands of American workers while making enormous profits.
During the Reagan era, millions of Americans were thrown out of work.
As productivity increased, from 1980 to the present, working people's wages remained essentially frozen.
The richest had their taxes cut in half.
By 2008, total household debt grew to nearly one hundred percent of the GDP.
Personal bankruptcies increased dramatically.
We locked up millions of our citizens.
Sales of antidepressants skyrocketed.
The cost of healthcare has risen since Reagan's election.
The stock market rose enormously from the time of Reagan's election to the present.
CEOs increased greatly from the time of Reagan's election to the present.
At the time when Mike was making 'Roger and Me,' GM was posting profits of over $4 billion, while simultaneously eliminating tens of thousands of jobs.
GM eliminated nearly all its jobs in Flint, and went bankrupt.
In Germany, unions help hire and fire the board of directors so the workers have a say in what's going on.
Shortly before Christmas 2008, Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors fired its entire unionized workforce of over 250 people, giving them only three days notice, and failing to pay legally required vacation and severance pay.
Wilkes-Barre has one of Pennsylvania's highest rates of juveniles in detention.
Luzerne County hired a for-profit, private company to deal with juveniles, owned by two entrepreneurs, one of whom was attorney Robert Powell.
Robert Powell's friend Judge Michael Conahan used his influence to shut down the county's public juvenile facility, and helped Powell get the $58 million contract to provide services to Luzerne County.
Hillary Transue was placed in detention for making a MySpace page mocking her Assistant Principal.
Robert Powell, one of the owners of PA Child Care, cut a business deal with Judge Conahan and Judge Ciavarella, paying them $2.6 million to help the for-profit juvenile facility.
Robert Powell enjoyed his ill-gotten gains on a private jet and a private yacht, called the "Reel Justice."
6,500 kids were unjustly convicted.
Regional airline pilots are often paid low salaries, which sometimes are less than those paid to fast food restaurant managers.
Daniel Johnson worked in middle management for Amegy Bank in Houston, Texas. Although he was not an executive or an essential element of the business, when Dan died, Amegy received nearly $5 million in life insurance benefits.
Purchasing life insurance policies on non-essential employees is a common corporate practice, one referred to in the insurance industry as "Dead Peasants" insurance.
Citigroup's research department wrote three memos for investors concluding that wealth and power in the U.S. were increasingly concentrated in the hands of the top 1%, stating the top 1% of the population now have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined.
There are many "worker cooperatives" in the United States, companies which are run democratically by the workers, who also own the company and share equitably in the profits.
Students from the top schools often go to Wall Street, where they can make a lot of money, rather than into the science and math fields.
A company owned by large banks processes large numbers of mortgages in Flint, Michigan.
Bob Feinberg, a former loan officer for Countrywide, offered discounted loans with good rates and low (or no) fees to VIPs, including current and former lawmakers.
The FBI warned of an approaching "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004.
The FBI says that 80% of the mortgage fraud was induced by the banks, not the individuals seeking loans.
After 9/11, more than 500 FBI white collar crime specialists were transferred over to terrorism.
Robert Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury, was a top executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. While at Treasury, he worked to deregulate the banking industry.
After he left the Treasury, Robert Rubin was paid over $115 million by Citigroup.
Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and current Chief Economic Adviser to President Obama, made millions of dollars in speaking fees, as well as $5.2 million from his part-time job at a hedge fund.
Timothy Geithner did a poor job as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Former Secretary of the Treasury Henry "Hank" Paulson, who engineered the Wall Street bailout, was an extremely well-paid CEO of Goldman Sachs just prior to taking the helm of the Treasury.
There were numerous Goldman alums in the Treasury department during both the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Hank Paulson and other Goldman Sachs alums (as well as other Wall Street insiders) worked to deregulate the financial industry while the taxpayers paid their salaries.
Many of Goldman Sach's rivals were felled by housing derivatives.
Citigroup ordered a $50 million private jet for the use of its top executives.
Goldman Sachs set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses in 2008, the same year in which they accepted $10 billion in TARP funds from the American taxpayer.
Goldman Sachs was President Barack Obama's number one private contributor, with nearly one million dollars in contributions.
Despite fear-mongering about the word "socialism," particularly around the time of the 2008 Presidential election, only 37% of young people prefer capitalism over socialism, while 33% prefer socialism to capitalism.
Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans decided to stop performing foreclosure sales until he was satisfied that distressed homeowners had been given adequate opportunities to avoid foreclosure through federal assistance.
The Trody family of Miami was evicted from their home of 22 years. After a brief stay in a bread truck, they moved back into their home, which was in foreclosure.
Bank of America and Republic Windows and Doors agreed to all the sit-down striking workers' demands.
On December 30, 1936, the workers of the Flint GM factories took over their plants and staged a sit-down strike that lasted 44 days, ultimately resulting in a key union victory over the company.
Michigan's Governor sent the National Guard in to protect the workers from the police and the company thugs, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approval.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a "Second Bill of Rights."
The Italian Constitution guaranteed all women equal rights in 1947.
The post-World War II German constitution said that the State has the right to take over property and the means of production for the common good.
And here's what we wrote up for the Japanese: all workers have a right to organize into a union. And academic freedom is guaranteed.
