Park Avenue: Money, Power & The American Dream If income inequality were a sport, the residents of 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan would all be medalists. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US -- the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill. With Alex Gibney, Jack Abramoff, Michele Bachmann, Bruce Bartlett. 740 Park Ave, New York City is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. How could it not be when the chance of an infant dying is five times greater on the Bronx Park Avenue than on Manhattan’s Park Avenue just across the Harlem River? This reshaping of the US economy has taken place over time, of course, and has accelerated over the past 30 years, since corporations have devised ways to influence and even fully shape policy that favors them. Here, unemployment runs at 19% and half the population need food stamps. Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream Is Greed a Part of Human Nature? Across the river, less than five miles away, Park Avenue runs through the South Bronx, home to the poorest congressional district in the United States. As of 2010, the 400 richest Americans controlled more … PopMatters have been informed by our current technology provider that we have to move off their service. Alex Gibney BrainyQuote has been providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community. The movie Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream is devoted to this very issue. Though the rich are often held up as examples of the American Dream, the bridge from "have not" to "have" grows increasingly mythical. It is believed, that the richest and the most influential people live there. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When wealth is created in this country, so is poverty. Walk between two world that both overlook a river and go by the name Park Avenue. The film starts with the description of the life at the 740 Park Avenue, Manhattan. THE WHY is the YouTube channel with the video I was referencing in my previous video strolling through Manhattan. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful. On one side, penthouses go for $90 million and on the other, the average income is less than $40 a day. When he describes the relationships that develop between congressmen and corporations, Park Avenue cuts to a title card that reads, simply, "He means money." Gibney refutes this belief by discerning the corruption caused by the wealthy, illuminating radical ideologies of notable capitalists, and analyzing how the rich exploit the law. In Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, “2007 George Bush spent fifteen minutes at the door of Steve Schwartzman asking for money, then he received 1.5 million for a republican event” (Alex Gibney). Cast: Paul PIff, Jeffrey Sachs, Jane Mayer, Popular Culture Is Eating Its History and OMD Are Not Complaining, BTS Master the Art of Timeless, Universal Songwriting with 'BE', Nicki and Patrick Adams Offer an Engaging Classical/Jazz Hybrid on 'Lynx', LOG ET3RNAL Is a Dubbed-out Beauty of Soft, Skeletal Ambience, Elvis Costello Gets Dark and Brooding on 'Hey Clockface', Shanghai Restoration Project Offer Innovative Alternate Reality on 'Brave New World Symphony', Filmmaker Diane Paragas on 'Yellow Rose' and the Heartbreak Behind Anti-Immigration Policies, On Finnish Film 'Open Up to Me' and Trans Portrayal in Film. The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Explore 164 Harlem Quotes by authors including Langston Hughes, Sinbad, and Future at BrainyQuote. It is also emphatic and framed by a bit of poetry, in the form of the Harlem River, which divides Park Avenue as if into two hemispheres, the wealthy, entitled Upper East Side and the South Bronx. 740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. We found subtitles for the program Park Avenue - Money, Power and the American Dream. Park Avenue suggests that this is not so much nostalgic but mythic, and that the disparities now so obvious were always in the works. Witness snapshots of the wealthy and the poor who are divided by such a small distance. The former super lobbyist (and subject of Gibney's excellent film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money) allows that he came to his insight in hard ways ("It required my demise"), but now makes it his business to expose the system he once manipulated so effectively. Abramoff's contribution to the new film is minimal but jarring. This address boasts the highest number of billionaires in the United States, many of whom actively lobby and finance political campaigns to lower taxes on the wealthy. Class apart: Manhattan’s Park Avenue in ‘Money, Power and the American Dream’ “Just because you’re rich doesn’t make you cultured. Deregulation, of course, is a favorite means for banks and corporations to expand their domains and reduce access to those domains for everyone else. How could it not be when the chance of an infant dying is five t..." (00:41) Credits: Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream—Why Poverty? "When I was growing up, the image of America, the self-image, was of a vast middle class country. Self-image is what matters, whether that self-image is believed by the Tea Party or Congress or America. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. ( Here is the PBS Independent Lens website, where you can check local listings and learn more about alternate viewing options .) Mayer points out as well that the Tea Party was never a populist movement or a "spontaneous combustion," as it was promoted, but instead was funded and instigated by "libertarian billionaires" (again, like the Kochs) devising numerous pressures on Congress, to continue to rig their game. Is Christian Petzold's 'Undine' Myth or Therapeutic Dialogue? With Alex Gibney, Jack Abramoff, Michele Bachmann, Bruce Bartlett. 740 Park is the home of the 1% of the 1% and has been the home of the finance ‘masters of the universe’ since the robber baron architects of the Great Depression lived there. But even as Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs frames this notion as nostalgia, it seems like a fantasy, like a metaphor without a real world connection. Ten minutes to the north, across the Harlem River, is the other Park Avenue, in the South Bronx. Journalist Jane Mayer puts it this way: "If you're poor enough and your schooling is bad enough, you don’t really have the opportunity to compete.". We are moving to WordPress and a new host, but we really need your help to fund the move and further development. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. How could it not be when the chance of an infant dying is five times greater on the Bronx Park Avenue than on Manhattan's Park Avenue just across the Harlem River? Directed by Alex Gibney. And indeed, this is the focus for the documentary, airing this week on PBS' Independent Lens and part of the series Why Poverty?. If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected. Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream Quotes No quotes approved yet for Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream. "'Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream' is an intentionally angry film. 10 minutes to the north, and over the Harlem River, is the other Park Avenue in the South Bronx, where more than half the population need food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. It appears that such pressures are built into the US econo-political system (only refined now, or perhaps more accurately, sledge-hammered). Just because you’re rich doesn’t make you refined. This address boasts the highest number of billionaires in … Say you play out that metaphor, and seek causes for the nation's loss of health, even as an idea. Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. Directed by Alex Gibney. Is the American Dream still obtainable? ‘Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream’ is an intentionally angry film. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. Review of: Alex Gibney's Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream Alex Gibney's Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream, is a documentary that compares the Park Avenue in Manhattan, NY to the Park Avenue of the South Bronx, NY. Filmmaker Alex Gibney investigates the fact that the 400 richest Americans control more wealth than the 150 million people in the bottom 50 percent of the population. According to the American Dream, it is possible for anyone living in the South Bronx Park Avenue to one day live in the prestigious Manhattan Park Avenue. Based on Michael Gross’ book 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, the film takes particular aim at the wealthiest denizens of this address, including David Koch (who, with his brother Charles, used their organization Americans for Prosperity and super PAC Restore Our Future, sustained Mitt Romney's recent bid for president) and Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group), featuring the latter's speeches to shareholders.