August 23rd, 2008 by john 
in Categories: 
I went to see I.O.U.S.A the other night. The documentary was accompanied by a live panel of 5 including Warren Buffet. The show was simulcast live to over 400 theaters nation wide. What an eye opening experience. I left the theater shocked and wondering how we (The United States) are going to fix the many financial problems facing this country over the next several decades. I pride myself at being informed. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of our collective financial situation. Boy was I wrong. Our National Debt is out of control! Every American ought to watch this documentary.
I am not going to attempt to explain the details of what we are facing. However, I would like to point out a few statistics mentioned in the movie. For starters, as of today, we are 9.6 trillion dollars in debt. That’s $31,586.31 for every citizen in the country! However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The total sum of all of our unfunded obligations, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and our National Debt is an astonishing $53,000,000,000,000 (53 Trillion dollars). That equals a mind blowing $175,000 for every American according to the Peter G Peterson Foundation. Crazy. Freak-in crazy!
I was especially impressed with David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States under Presidents’ Reagan, Bush and Clinton. He did an excellent job of explaining the problem in terms everyone can relate to. He resigned his government position to join the Peter G. Peterson Foundation as the President and Chief Executive Officer to focus on helping the public become aware of this enormous problem.
This was a real wake up call. I am very concerned about the immense debt load we are leaving our children and grandchildren. If the situation is not addressed future generations will undoubtedly be faced with a much lower standard of living than we Americans have come accustomed.
I highly recommend you check this out. It is opening in theaters across the country on August 22, 2008. It is an unbiased, nonpartisan look at one of the biggest problems facing our nation. It will be played at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. It is timely and informative. Find a theater and be prepared to be shocked!
Did you catch the live performance? Have you seen the movie? What did you think?
If you want to learn more, visit http://www.pgpf.org/ and http://www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t want to even begin to think about this but I suppose we all must! I had no idea about this film. Thanks for letting me know.
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John reply on August 23rd, 2008 7:34 am:
Heidi – Yes, it is not a very pleasant subject to think about. One thing I liked about this documentary is that they took a boring, unpleasant subject and added humor, videos, TV clips and made it interesting! Put it this way, I took my teenage daughter and she didn’t fall asleep!
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Hey John. I haven’t even heard of this movie before, but I’ll check it out for sure. It’s really scary stuff, but at least it’s getting out there. From what I know, a likely outcome is the fed trying to print our way out this mess, leaving us with even worse inflation than we are already seeing.
Glad to hear it’s actually interesting to watch. I recently watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ for the first time, and was almost put to sleep!
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John reply on August 26th, 2008 12:57 am:
Blake – The Fed printing money to get out of this mess was brought up several times in I.O.U.S.A. As you pointed out, this will cause an inflation nightmare. This film was much more entertaining than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, in my opinion. AND, deals with a catastrophic problem that will occur long before global warming. In fact, we will probably be able to use all those useless dollars to mop up the melted glaciers! That’s not funny, please forgive me…..
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It’s insane when you break these quotes down to a personal level. It really makes you begin to appreciate the depth of the problem. Something none of us really wants to think about… but I’m glad you’re challenging/encouraging us to do so. Thanks, John, for another informative post.
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John reply on August 26th, 2008 1:00 am:
ssgreylord – Yeah, the per person debt load brought it home for me. Scary stuff! The film does give some ideas on what individuals can do to help with the situation. Again, I think everyone should check it out!
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Good post John. The national debt is awful just awful and it is a huge problem. I definitely need to check this movie out and start charging my credit card. The former will be easier than the latter.
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John reply on August 26th, 2008 5:18 pm:
Thanks for all your support of this blog Tim. It is definitely worth checking out! And yes the place to start for all of us, is our charge cards.
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Hmmm I just wish it would be showing somewhere in my vicinity. I believe it’s only a number of major cities right now?
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John reply on August 28th, 2008 12:44 am:
Hopefully it will be released in more theaters. If not, definitely check it out on DVD!
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Love the title. I’ve been hearing more and more about this film lately, so I really need to see it. Check out my latest post, too, for recent news on the “IOU” situation….
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John reply on August 28th, 2008 12:46 am:
Thanks MoneyEnergy, I will check out your post as well. I am hoping this problem will get more attention in the coming election.
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It all boils down to _everyone_ taking huge debt as normal. From the president down. $50,000 in personal debt? Hey, No biggie!
It’s a failure of perspicacity.
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John reply on September 8th, 2008 10:46 pm:
TigerTom – Couldn’t agree with you more! We are so used to the debt situation that it seems normal. We need to break this thought process and start living within our means.
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Thanks for the reminder about this. I had heard of it and then forgot it.
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