In July 2010 Donald Goldmacher, co-producer and director of www.heist-themovie.com (view trailer here), interviewed me about various aspects of my career and the impact of outsourcing. We also discussed my role in Programmers Guild - particularly about a YouTube that I created which shows immigration attorneys at a seminar instructing HR personnel the legal process for not hiring qualified U.S. workers. The film included a segment of that video , and my statements about the impact that Carly Fiorina's call to offshore Hewlett-Packard operations to China has impacted me, other tech workers, and the U.S. economy.
 

SYNOPSIS: The American economy has been eviscerated due to four decades of deregulation, the outsourcing of forty-million manufacturing jobs, and self-serving tax policies that have created a new class of robber barons. Today's news blames Americans' devastated 401(k)'s and collapsed home values on financial earthquakes within the last two years. But "Heist" traces these seismic shifts back to their roots in the early 1970s. It shows how large corporations - acting through lobbying organizations like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - began a political mobilization that would propel the largest transfer of wealth in history. The winners were the wealthiest 1% of our population. The losers were ordinary Americans, whose real income has barely increased since 1973.

Beginning with background on the New Deal, Heist explores how Franklin Delano Roosevelt's progressive policies were derailed by Ronald Reagan and subsequent presidential administrations, benefiting only the wealthiest investors and CEOs. "Heist" exposes the full story: how corporate leaders worked with elected officials of both major political parties to create the largest transfer of wealth in history, looting the economy to create a gap between rich and poor previously seen only in impoverished colonial nations. The film is structured as a political thriller, showing the shift from FDR's New Deal reforms to an ideology where the free market reigns. It reveals the impact of the infamous Powell memo of 1971 entitled "Attack on American Free Enterprise System," which was a call to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for American business to defend its interests against criticisms of unregulated capitalism. The Powell Memo and the 1000 page Mandate for Leadership document published in 1980 by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which were written to promote business interests and deregulation, serve as the starting points of the story to show the roots of the class warfare unleashed by big business, and how wealth in the U.S. was transferred from workers to corporate interests over decades of policy shifts.

"Heist" also reveals how corporate right-wingers such as Joseph Coors founded conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, that provided intellectual justifications for redistributing wealth upward.

 
On October 13th 2011 I attended the premiere of the film at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and for a brief moment got to see me on the silver screen.
 
The next morning I went for a hike in Muir Woods. The last time I was there was around age 15 with my father and uncle - and always wanted to return. The lower park was too crowded - I was lucky to get a parking slot - but after hiking up a trail for about 20 minutes I had the place to myself.
 
 
Interview by Donald Goldmacher, July 2010
 
 
Film still at 31:52
 
 
 
Q&A after the premiere
Robert Crandall, former president and chairman of American Airlines
me
Jovanka Beckles, Richmond City Councilmember
Frances Causey, co-producer and director, and a journalist and former CNN News Editor
 
 
 
Donald Goldmacher and Frances Causey
 
 
 
 
Cast and crew celebration
 
 
Muir Woods trail
 
 
Self-portrait relaxing in Muir Woods
 
 
Self-portrait at hotel
 
 
Self-portrait at hotel