On a bit of an anti-business rant, the CBS Person of Interest episode “A More Perfect Union” takes a couple of swipes at free enterprise capitalism and evil, greedy businessmen.
Greer (John Nolan) is trying to convince Sameen (Sarah Shahi) to switch sides and join the Samaritan “team” (for lack of a better word). Samaritan is able to calculate and predict crimes in the future and Greer wants to eliminate the people involved way before they can come to pass, whereas Sameen’s “team” The Machine waits until the threat is imminent and works to preserve human life when it can.
In one scene, Greer says that high frequency traders are mass killers. Apparently companies have been pushed out of business due to the greedy, fraudulent traders and their trading actions have denied life-saving air conditioning to the elderly and children in Uganda have died due to a lack of vaccines.
Sameen: Why did you bring me here?
Greer: These two gentlemen.
Sameen: Of course. To show me two rich, balding white men.
Greer: They're high-frequency traders In the last month alone, their actions have put several companies out of business. One of those companies maintained air conditioners at low prices. Another provided affordable vaccines to third world countries.
Sameen: So just have your Machine put them in white-collar prison where they can meet more of their kind and rob more innocent people.
Greer: They didn't just rob innocent people, Sameen. Because these men committed fraud, elderly citizens from Bakersfield to Bangladesh perished because they had no access to cooling systems. A hundred children in Uganda died of measles. Those men are killers, and they will kill again. Tell me, do you still believe white-collar prison is sufficient punishment for them?
That’s right. Punishment for fraudulent trading practices is not imprisonment, it is death.
In the next clip, Greer tells Sameen that the vice president of a manufacturer of commercial airline parts deserves to die, along with the man from the major airline he is making a deal with to purchase cheap parts in order to cut costs. These mass marketed airline parts are cheaper, so Greer claims corners are being cut. These cuts will result in killing “2,100 souls,” as he states that one to seven jets will crash in the future.
Sameen: Those two are drowning orphans? No? Smothering cancer patients?
Greer: The one on the left is vice president of a company that manufactures parts for commercial airlines. He has found a way of mass-marketing critical equipment at a price far lower than his competitors.
Sameen: Must be cutting corners.
Greer: Correct. His companion works for the U.S.'s largest domestic and commercial airline. Right now, he's about to make a deal to purchase faulty equipment from our corrupt vice president. Saving his airline money. Both men will earn promotion, salary bumps, bonuses, gold watches. They will lead the good life. But at least one of the airline's commercial jets will go down over the course of the next five years, because of the deal those men are making today.
.Sameen At least, but how about at most?
Greer: Seven. The death toll will settle at around 2,100. Give or take a few infants in arms. It's not enough to wait for an innocent life to be in imminent danger. If we were to eliminate the two men in front of you now, we would potentially save 2,100 souls. Their number would not even need to come up.
Sameen: You're trying to convince me that I'm playing for the wrong team. It's not working.
Person of Interest trots out the tired lefty Hollywood trope of the greedy, eeeeeevil businessman. MRC has decades of studies showing that businessmen commit more crimes than any other profession on prime time network television.
Politics is downstream from culture. Young people are bombarded with anti-business messages from Hollywood; with shows like this, it is no wonder socialist Bernie Sanders and his anti-capitalism platform is so popular with youth.
