Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream

As Bill Clinton said, "It's the economy, stupid." The United States is the epitome of power capitalism. According to this documentary, this is a system that benefits those who already have. The American Dream, the country's unique selling point, has become a myth. There are still rags-to-riches stories of newspaper boys becoming media tycoons, but they are increasingly rare. This film rhetorically asks if a child born on Park Avenue in the Bronx could ever make it to Park Avenue in Manhattan - 740 Park Avenue, to be precise, an apartment block where only billionaires live. While one in seven Americans depends on food stamps to live, the 400 richest people in the country earn more than the poorest 150 million. Economists, political scientists and journalists contribute to this thrilling, quick-cut argument about how capitalist America got out of balance, and how the rich use the political system to increase their power and wealth. Big corporations invest in presidential campaigns for political profit. A former lobbyist explains how much influence lobbyists have on legislation. Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan appears as an advocate of free market thinking inspired by the ideas of philosopher Ayn Rand, and as a politician lobbyists can control.