Michael Moore: Take All Your Money Out of Banks and Stocks

Schlockumentary producer Michael Moore Thursday advised his readers to take all their money out of banks that received bailout funds AND divest themselves completely of American stocks.

Such lunacy was posted at Moore's website as part of a list of things he recommends people do "to fight back and try to fix this very broken system."

Moore began by listing five truly hysterical demands of the President and Congress:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change.

Yikes! Is it Halloween already?

If you're not sufficiently frightened, maybe some of Moore's suggestions concerning what you should do to protect yourself and your loved ones will do the trick:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union. [...]

3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers.

Wow! So let's kill America's top banks AND divest all of our funds from American corporations.

Almost sounds like the kind of stuff Osama bin Laden puts in his videotapes, doesn't it? 

Of course, it would be very interesting to find out whether Moore is following his own advice. 

After all, when Moore claimed back in 2005 that he didn't own stocks in American companies, it was revealed by Peter Schweizer that he owned shares in Boeing, Sunoco, Best Foods, Eli Lilly, Bank One, and even the dreaded Halliburton. 

With this in mind, maybe Moore should have to prove that he's actually taken all of his money out of bailed out banks and U.S. stocks before he recommend others do.