Generation Zero

I usually enjoy documentaries. I want to know what caused the financial crisis of 2008. Books like "When Genius Failed," "The Big Short," and "Liar's Poker," really shed light on Wall St's ugly side and the tricks they used to engineer the collapse of 2008. Unfortunately this garbage of a documentary largely fails at explaining anything but instead injects completely biased opinions ranging from Godlessness, to Saul Alinsky as reasons for our economic despair. REALLY?!! This film covers the usual right wing Kool Aid topics like, Hippies, Godlessness, 50's mothers (women), Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN, too much regulation, you've heard all this garbage before on Youtube commentaries but this movie lumps it them in one long propaganda film. The non stop music starts to grate on your nerves and is a shameless attempt to manipulate your emotions. Unfortunately morons will use this film as an echo chamber to their already warped sense of what is happening in this world.

I give this film three stars because that's about how many true statements it contains. But firstly, this director uses the same psychological machinations that the latest president's political consultants used to get him elected - cognitive dissonance (tension which comes from holding two conflicting or unconnected thoughts in the mind at the same time). The images on the screen hold very little or no reinforcement of what the narrator is saying, and usually distracts from the point. They do, however, reinforce multitudinous snide innuendos.

I could only absorb what was said by not watching the screen, but only listening. Listening was made difficult because the music (also distracting and irrelevant) was way too loud. In order to hear the narratives, you have to turn up the volume and put up with ear-splitting music apparently also designed to enhance the dissonance.

The "meat" of the film is that there are cycles in society which lead to war, peace, prosperity and change. Guess which one we're in. This doomsday presentation traces all the blame to a US generation that is easy to make fun of, with no tenable connection, for the debt and inflation explosion at the inevitable disaster. I've not read all the books by the scholars interviewed, but I'm familiar enough with the liberal organizations they associate themselves with. Economics is the result of more than just opinions, but productivity, creativity and policy. They correctly point out the flaws in the recent (post 2008) desperate machinations of the Fed and US Treasury, but offer no solutions, evasive actions we may take, or even useful warnings.

I found tongue-in-cheek humor in the images that flash continuously past the viewer. Some, like a flash of suckling piglets on a sow's abdomen or the many scenes of exploding buildings, appear so ridiculous in view of the narration that if you turned off the sound, this could be an entertaining film.

Expect to be alarmed, depressed and confused by this film, not enlightened or edified.

This is a right wing attack ad disguised as a documentary.There are no real facts presented, just the normal right wing rants about how everyone who doesn't agree with their view point is ruining the country.Democrats = communists,all regulations are strangling the business world,social programs are bleeding us dry, etc. At least they could have tried to make this interesting but no the constant attacks on everyone but Wall Street and so self righteous that after less than a quarter of the documentary it starts to grate on your nerves. Hippies, Godlessness, 50's mothers (women), Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN, too much regulation caused the 2008 crash! REALLY?!! If you don't think but follow along and believe all the right wing crap this film will appeal to you, otherwise don't bother watching this.

Wow, i've never seen such a ridiculous piece of right-wing propaganda in my life. With a straight face, they actually try to make the case that the 2008 financial crash was the fault of...get this... 1960s hippies. Yes, you heard me correctly, it was The LIBRULS!!11!!!!!1 The crash didn't happen because of deregulation, corruption and financial deepening - no, it was because Americans lost their 'morals' and began consuming conspicuously. that's right. the consumer's fault. we did this. oh, and the democrats, of course.....and the Chinese for some reason.

This is a sad attempt to say that this wasn't capitalism's fault - that it was a perversion of capitalism with too much government intervention.

For all those who felt this film is just more right wing propaganda based on zero facts, I would appreciate their individual explanations calling out who, what, when, where, how and why we are now facing our "fiscal cliff" and potential economic meltdown.

It is one thing to scream "propaganda" from a shallow emotional perspective however; without providing some intelligent facts to reasonably explain your opposite viewpoint or perspective, you just appear to parroting back a completely uninformed response of "No, that's not it!" Please explain what you know factually - not emotionally - are the root causes of our fiscal cliff and potential economic meltdown.