Generation Zero: The Truth About the Financial Meltdown is a documentary film written and directed by Stephen K. Bannon and produced by David Bossie for Citizens United.
The film opens with well respected financial bloggers like Barry Ritholtz, Michael Panzer and yours truly discussing the breadth of the crisis. The film begins in a low key manner and slowly builds to a crescendo of fear, corruption, greed and incompetence among the elite who control the country. Bannon puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Wall Street bankers and their corrupt protectors in Washington DC. Essentially, the theme of the film is that the rich ruling elite have gamed the system for decades and have destroyed the middle class of this country. Government malfeasance in passing the Community Reinvestment Act, repealing Glass Steagall, and allowing 5 Investment Banks (Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch,and Morgan Stanley) to leverage 40 to 1 led to the crisis. When these firms converted from partnerships, with individual liability, to corporations with no personal liability, pandora's box had been opened.

Bannon skewers the Baby boomers who came of age during the turbulent 1960's and then turned into the greedy yuppies of the 1980's and 1990's. Bannon brilliantly ties together this financial crisis with Strauss & Howe's Fourth Turning book. The film proceeds through the Unraveling of the 1990's and early 2000's. Neil Howe is the calm voice of reason throughout the film. The Unraveling is induced by greed, shortsightedness, inability to make tough decisions and most of all debt. The prominent spokespeople in the film included Newt Gingrich, Tobin Smith, Shelby Steele, Amity Shales, and Peter Schweizer.







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