The Price We Pay
CA, 2014, 93 min, English OV
Directed by: Harold Crooks
Friday
June 12th
18:00
CO-PRESENTED BY
Attac Graz, Alternativreferat der ÖH Uni Graz
Director Harold Crooks (Surviving Progress) once again blows the lid off the dirty world of corporate malfeasance with his new documentary The Price We Pay. The incendiary film exposes how „offshore“ finance and the tech giants of the „cloud“ economy are eroding the foundations of the democratic state, including progressive taxation and social safety nets.
In the 1950s, City of London bankers created a web of tax haven dependencies that today puts over half the world’s stock of money beyond the reach of public treasuries. Presently, nation states are being reshaped by this offshoring of the world’s wealth into “competition” states that battle each other for investment and jobs. Lowering corporate taxes to do so, they are caught in a perilous race to the bottom. The spreading de-taxation is paving the way to depression era – or worse – levels of inequality. Meanwhile, the tax burden is shifted to the vanishing middle class and the poor.
Our guides on this journey include crusading journalists, tax justice campaigners, and a remarkable cast of former major finance and technology industry insiders now free to speak frankly. They fear these accelerating trends are carrying the Western world to an unsustainable future.
A vital exposé of the destructive forces of neoliberal capitalism, The Price We Pay is a forceful and compelling call to action.