I went to see this documentary by Jennifer Baichwal yesterday and while I liked it a lot, I should warn potential filmgoers that the marketing is a bit misleading. The previews I'd seen, at least, led some people to expect a seriously political film about environmental problems in China. The film really doesn't give you the kind of essayistic argument that you see in SiCKO and An Inconvenient Truth. Instead of being a political movie about environmental problems in China, it's an arty movie about Edward Burtynsky's still photographs of industrial processes and the landscapes that result from them in China.
Personally, I appreciated the non-didactic tone. The film's hints as to the filmmakers' political views made me think I'd be considerably more enthusiastic about China's economic rise than they are, but the movie mostly plays it straight. The takeaway point becomes not something about what must be done or the technical origins of the problems (you should probably read Christina Larson's article about China and the environment for that), but rather something about the sheer scale of what's happening. The combination of film and still photography does an excellent job of driving home exactly how much is changing how rapidly over there in a way that the brute numbers can't quite convey.
UPDATE: Or see Dana Goldstein's essentially identical review.
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Heads in the Sand
The very rich often in the US became that way through finance, think JP Morgan. Plenty however got that way through building large modern corporations which actually made things, including millions of jobs.
Virtually all the uber wealthy today make their money by financial means either on or though Wall Street and create few if any jobs and stupendous mountains of debt and debt derivative paper.
Being smart about finance has been the key to wealth for two centuries but such smarts are peculiar thing and the rewards have always outstripped the actual worth of the talent.
There is a certain amount of truth to the self serving meme that we must favor them with tax advantages, non or absent regulation and have a Fed and Treasury to work directly with them to support the markets to keep their financial assets inflated. The truth in that is that finance now IS the economy. If for some reason there was a widespread financial panic, a liquidity crisis, the results for most Americans would be worse than the Great Depression. The next time however the political solution will not come from the 'left'.
Posted by rapier | July 15, 2007 9:13 AM