A helpful and concise insight into the economic downturn of Europe and how the privatisation of public services has become the protagonist of our current contemporary state; perpetually used as false savior by the people who created need for one in the first place. Concentrating heavily on the recent depletion of Greece with regards to the global economy. This documentary offers a long overdue investigation into the prospective effects of radical Neo- liberal politics in the western world. With discourse from some of the worlds foremost thinkers; each providing a well researched and informed platform to challenge the idea of democracy and whether it still exists.
5 Reviews
A helpful and concise insight into the economic downturn of Europe
bloodtrainfromtokyo26 June 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Privatization goes public
atmat3 May 2012
This documentary explains what happens in, widely considered, successful economies, when public goods like water, energy and public transport go private. It's targeted in the case of Greece but it can be also viewed as a general model. The cases are well documented and the documentary has a really good structure. It gets you deeply without even being boring.
This documentary can be viewed as a natural - as things evolve - follow-up to 'Debtocracy'.
I strongly believe that it's a "must see" for everyone interested in democracy.
This documentary can be viewed as a natural - as things evolve - follow-up to 'Debtocracy'.
I strongly believe that it's a "must see" for everyone interested in democracy.
Not-so-alternative point of view
roigprietojordi20 August 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I cannot verify all the facts stated in this documentary, but many of them and the whole sense of this work agrees with my modest knowledge of economic theory and history that I learned at University, in books (last one is "Debt, the first 5000 years") and other documentaries such as "Inside Job" and others that focus on the power of money and their effect on human behavior.
Let's start from the beginning, assuming that PURE Capitalism is the system where production is in private hands and that their owners want to maximize their profit, no matter the path they take to achieve this, this agrees with the fact that capitalists aim is to privatize everything. Why would a person that can buy anything would still want more?, this is answered in "Inside Job" and by many behavioral economic studies.
Let's continue. "Neoliberalism" is widely repeated in the one hour and half documentary. It is presented as an ideology risen in Economic schools in the western world (the same way "Inside Job" did) that has nothing to do with real world. Documentary shows with many examples how massive privatization and efficiency do not go hand-in-hand (as neolibs would affirm), because pure privatization of natural monopolies generally leads to worse services and higher prices of final costumers (which is agree with economic theory of monopolies, that can lower their production in order to increase prices because their aim is to maximize profit, not to serve the people).
More stuff. Politics and democracy are central subjects of debate in this work. Why in democracy is happening such self-destruction of middle class? Catastroika argues that Mass Media is monopolized by the neolib opinion, and opposite-side points of view are rapidly insulted as "populists" or "comunist". Have anyone ever asked why in western cultures those words are insults? Has anything to do with the fact that the capitalist block won the Cold War? Why communist or real socialist parties are seen today as extremists by popular culture? Is it extremist to seek the wellbeing for ALL citizens and not only the ones who possess huge amounts of capital? Why a system based on a (yet fragile) balance of Capitalism and State-driven-Socialism is now so put to doubt and yet it provided the fastest expansion of human development in the 50s and 60s of past century? Catastroika has the ability to help viewers answer some big questions and still let space for far more questions to be answered. Because the research of the undergrounds of the REAL system we live in needs more answers, and more documentaries like Catastroika.
Let's start from the beginning, assuming that PURE Capitalism is the system where production is in private hands and that their owners want to maximize their profit, no matter the path they take to achieve this, this agrees with the fact that capitalists aim is to privatize everything. Why would a person that can buy anything would still want more?, this is answered in "Inside Job" and by many behavioral economic studies.
Let's continue. "Neoliberalism" is widely repeated in the one hour and half documentary. It is presented as an ideology risen in Economic schools in the western world (the same way "Inside Job" did) that has nothing to do with real world. Documentary shows with many examples how massive privatization and efficiency do not go hand-in-hand (as neolibs would affirm), because pure privatization of natural monopolies generally leads to worse services and higher prices of final costumers (which is agree with economic theory of monopolies, that can lower their production in order to increase prices because their aim is to maximize profit, not to serve the people).
More stuff. Politics and democracy are central subjects of debate in this work. Why in democracy is happening such self-destruction of middle class? Catastroika argues that Mass Media is monopolized by the neolib opinion, and opposite-side points of view are rapidly insulted as "populists" or "comunist". Have anyone ever asked why in western cultures those words are insults? Has anything to do with the fact that the capitalist block won the Cold War? Why communist or real socialist parties are seen today as extremists by popular culture? Is it extremist to seek the wellbeing for ALL citizens and not only the ones who possess huge amounts of capital? Why a system based on a (yet fragile) balance of Capitalism and State-driven-Socialism is now so put to doubt and yet it provided the fastest expansion of human development in the 50s and 60s of past century? Catastroika has the ability to help viewers answer some big questions and still let space for far more questions to be answered. Because the research of the undergrounds of the REAL system we live in needs more answers, and more documentaries like Catastroika.
An "Infowar" production
Radu_A4 October 2018
How do you make a propaganda piece that gets voted 8.+ on IMDB? Throw together a bunch of facts interspersed with talking heads - so that a gullible audience doesn't notice that the information isn't connected at all.
The film portrays the debt crisis in Greece as an element of cannibal capitalism through privatization and lists Chile, Russia, Thatcherist Britain and East Germany in one breath as examples. Chile was a CIA-fostered coup aimed at curbing Communist expansion; the Soviet Union was bankrupted in the course of the arms race with the US, which enabled new private banks to sell and confiscate assets for a pittance - which is how the oligarchy started; and Greece went several times over the Euro stability criteria to finance political promises and the Olympics, thereby increasing its borrowing costs until the crisis hit. Thatcherism is, indeed, a perfect example of neoliberal capitalism, but in this film, all kinds of non-connected things are thrown together to create the illusion of a global conspiracy. Your head will spin over movie clips, snippets of Slavoj Zizek and Naomi Klein, and how they connect Greece with British rail privatization and Enron.
I can only determine the full scope of disinformation here on the bits about Germany. The "experts" consulted here are with one exception members of "Die Linke", the follow-up of the sole East German party SED. Which means these people were part / benefited from the ruling elite, and since they lost their privileges upon reunification, they have created their own mythology about evil West Germany taking over the innocent East. No word about East Germans being adopted into the Western pension fund and health insurance scheme, financed by a "solidarity tax" of 5.5% on top of income tax - until today! No word about the "Länderausgleich" which obliges states like Bavaria, which generate a budget surplus, to finance states on a deficit, which are the Eastern ones.
But of course, for Greeks Germany and the EU are evil because they insisted on compliance with the Euro stability pact before agreeing to bail them out. Yet had the evil Troika not pressured Greece into this and chosen Grexit instead, there would have been state bankruptcy, and no bank would have vouched for Greek debt. The Greeks would have had to negotiate a deal with private equity funds like Argentina, they would have returned to the Drachma leading to hyperinflation, and the overall situation would have been way worse than it is now. But hey, those are facts, and who gives a damn about those these days. You'll either applaud this fact manipulation because it fits your view of the world, or you'll shake your head over people believing this nonsense.
The film portrays the debt crisis in Greece as an element of cannibal capitalism through privatization and lists Chile, Russia, Thatcherist Britain and East Germany in one breath as examples. Chile was a CIA-fostered coup aimed at curbing Communist expansion; the Soviet Union was bankrupted in the course of the arms race with the US, which enabled new private banks to sell and confiscate assets for a pittance - which is how the oligarchy started; and Greece went several times over the Euro stability criteria to finance political promises and the Olympics, thereby increasing its borrowing costs until the crisis hit. Thatcherism is, indeed, a perfect example of neoliberal capitalism, but in this film, all kinds of non-connected things are thrown together to create the illusion of a global conspiracy. Your head will spin over movie clips, snippets of Slavoj Zizek and Naomi Klein, and how they connect Greece with British rail privatization and Enron.
I can only determine the full scope of disinformation here on the bits about Germany. The "experts" consulted here are with one exception members of "Die Linke", the follow-up of the sole East German party SED. Which means these people were part / benefited from the ruling elite, and since they lost their privileges upon reunification, they have created their own mythology about evil West Germany taking over the innocent East. No word about East Germans being adopted into the Western pension fund and health insurance scheme, financed by a "solidarity tax" of 5.5% on top of income tax - until today! No word about the "Länderausgleich" which obliges states like Bavaria, which generate a budget surplus, to finance states on a deficit, which are the Eastern ones.
But of course, for Greeks Germany and the EU are evil because they insisted on compliance with the Euro stability pact before agreeing to bail them out. Yet had the evil Troika not pressured Greece into this and chosen Grexit instead, there would have been state bankruptcy, and no bank would have vouched for Greek debt. The Greeks would have had to negotiate a deal with private equity funds like Argentina, they would have returned to the Drachma leading to hyperinflation, and the overall situation would have been way worse than it is now. But hey, those are facts, and who gives a damn about those these days. You'll either applaud this fact manipulation because it fits your view of the world, or you'll shake your head over people believing this nonsense.
Fear propaganda at its best
ersbel15 June 2012
This is a travesty. An exercise in fear propaganda. And a nice one once you are not aware of the historical details or you don't care. In order to work the people who supported these measures in the vain hope of feeding their own greed are cut off from the guilt as the leaders become somehow disconnected from their electorate.
Alexander Buzgalin. Talks about the price of an industrial building in Siberia. He talks about the price to build something similar. But he implies the market value for a building in the middle of nowhere should be the one in the accountancy books. Fake. The value is zero. The infrastructure is bad. The workers and drivers are unruly. But this is impossible to comprehend to people born and raised by the communists and their inflated dreams of grandeur.
Zoom to Boris Kagarlitsky. Who sells a crude example of a blend of stupidity of a corrupted official and the corruption of a state who grew oligarchs as a good example of what? The viewer is lead with cut up inserts of a larger speech of Naomy Klein to accept the thesis of the producers: some occult power has date raped Russia and gave all the valuables to some unruly oligarchs who create chaos even in the West.
Even Naomi Klein succumbs to become a propaganda monger. AIDS was not the result of privatization, but the consequence of Russians not willing to work for reaching the perceived level of the Western lives and starting prostitution rings from Japan to US. AIDS was barely known behind the Iron Courtain precisely for the strong enforcement of prostitution laws and isolation from foreigners.
And this is only a glimpse in the first 5 minutes. Of almost 90 minutes!
Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch
Alexander Buzgalin. Talks about the price of an industrial building in Siberia. He talks about the price to build something similar. But he implies the market value for a building in the middle of nowhere should be the one in the accountancy books. Fake. The value is zero. The infrastructure is bad. The workers and drivers are unruly. But this is impossible to comprehend to people born and raised by the communists and their inflated dreams of grandeur.
Zoom to Boris Kagarlitsky. Who sells a crude example of a blend of stupidity of a corrupted official and the corruption of a state who grew oligarchs as a good example of what? The viewer is lead with cut up inserts of a larger speech of Naomy Klein to accept the thesis of the producers: some occult power has date raped Russia and gave all the valuables to some unruly oligarchs who create chaos even in the West.
Even Naomi Klein succumbs to become a propaganda monger. AIDS was not the result of privatization, but the consequence of Russians not willing to work for reaching the perceived level of the Western lives and starting prostitution rings from Japan to US. AIDS was barely known behind the Iron Courtain precisely for the strong enforcement of prostitution laws and isolation from foreigners.
And this is only a glimpse in the first 5 minutes. Of almost 90 minutes!
Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch
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