Jamie Johnson, a young adult (b. 1979) in the family behind “Johnson
and Johnson” company, certainly “intrudes” into his own documentary, “The One
Percent”, starting out as he adjusts a mike on his upper chest as he gets ready
to be filmed. (That’s all OK; he is
slender, youthful, and “desirable” or even "cute", unlike most of the stuffy, even decaying
old me whom he interviews.) He ends by
winning the support of his mother, who was not born into wealth. For most of the rest of his 76-minute film,
he fights off resistance from his father and other male family members, and
documents the resistance of many of the wealthy in “talking about it” with the
media. And the kids of wealth grow up
with the idea that you don’t speak out, as Nicole Buffet finds out, after her
grandfather cuts her out of the family (and I guess, the will) for appearing in
the film.
In fact, the film was made in 2005-2006, well before the
Financial Crisis of 2008, during the middle of the Subprime real estate bubble,
before many people could admit what would go wrong.
An early scene of the film shows a seminar at “Lido Wealth”
in Florida, giving a seminar about “Family wealth: keeping it in the family”. It’s as if “blood loyalty” and sexual
self-discipline could provide a moral justification for massive income
inequality.
Jamie has a lot of conversations with Milton Friedman, who
gets tired of him, but at least makes his claim that “trickle down” really does
trickle. He talks to Roy Martin, a lumber industry captain in Louisiana, about
the idea of being endowed with wealthy by God, to do something with it. He also interviews Coday Franchetti, and
Chuck Collims, som of Oscar Meyer.
One of the most interesting episodes occurs when Jamie tours
Belle Glade, FL, a town on Lake Okeechobee in south Florida, heavy into the
sugar cane business, which really exploits cheap labor.
I visited the town on vacation, in an Alamo rental car, back
in August1986, curious because Belle Glade had been reported as a center of an
unexplained AIDS outbreak. The center of town looked like a scene from a third world country, with crude signs around for hand laundry. I remember
being followed by a car until I got out of town. Was AIDS the dirty secret, or was it economic practices? Not so far from Belle Glade (50 miles) is one of America’s
richest communities, Palm Beach. On the other hand, West Palm Beach (which I remember from a childhood trip) is quite ordinary and middle class.
The official site for HBO is here.
The DVD (ion Netflix) comes from Virgil Films, and the film
starts playing with no menu. The film can be rented “legally” on YouTube for
$1.99.
Here is a supplementary short film (9 Min), “Who Are the One
Percent?” by Thom Harmann and Robert Greenwald, from Nov. 2011 (post
2008-crash). Does the One Percent “keep
down” the other 99%?. FDR had said that
no one should become “rich and fat” because of war in 1941.
Greenwald’s site is “Who are the 1 Percent?”, basic site
here.
Wikipedia attribution link for Belle Glade scene
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