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Comments on I.O.U.S.A. Movie Is Well-Done and Informative
by Dr. Duru
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    Nothing new here. Read this article from two years ago as it explains the situation very clearly, including the solution.
    seekingalpha.com/artic...

    Title: The U.S. Economy: Finding the Balance Between Production and Consumption

    Excerpt: "The first dose of reality is to understand that no economy can maintain a 66% consumption rate. The ideal situation is that production equals consumption."

    CrossProfit
    2008 Aug 22 06:27 AM Reply
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    #9 Cut military spending and only use our military to defend and protect the USA and its vital interests. Nothing more, nothing less. You know, like its supposed to be.
    2008 Aug 22 08:05 AM Reply
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    I went to see the film last night and was shocked at the US's economic dilemma. This movie should be required viewing for your children, grand children and all our elected leaders. Here is a link to the trailer....
    www.agorafinancial.com...
    2008 Aug 22 08:20 AM Reply
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    that'd do a lot of good - although at the moment social security & medicare compose ~2/3 of the national budget to begin with - reducing defense expenditures won't make everything rosy.
    2008 Aug 22 08:26 AM Reply
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    So I guess it would not be a good idea to add yet another gov't entitlement program like the innocuously mis-named "single payer program" touted by Barack Obama. How can we rein in spending when, as Obama frequently tells us, we are not doing enough "for the least of these my brethren". The problem is obvious: the rich are not paying enough. They may pay 90% of federal income tax, but that's not enough! (or so we're told).

    Can we get a balanced budget amendment passed, please? Can somebody convince the American people that the chief beneficiary of the Social Security system is not grandma, it's Congress? The main difference between real T-bonds and the fuzzy $53 trillion liability the gov't supposedly "owes" us for Social Security is that the gov't can renege on the deal at any time without the consequences of defaulting on a bond.
    2008 Aug 22 08:29 AM Reply
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    Here's an idea. You want to balance the budget and eliminate the debt? Make everybody, including poor people, pay federal taxes. This will work because a) there are so many more people currently not paying much and b) once people feel the pain of even small increases in their taxes, they'll get serious about wasteful spending.

    As for BigBagel's solution #9, it is not clear that foreign wars such as those the US is now fighting in the Middle East are not also protecting the USA and its vital interests (by protecting the oil supply).
    2008 Aug 22 08:33 AM Reply
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    Buffet cannot say things are terrible due to what it will do to his stock price and his boy obama wants to spend more which is at odds with solving the problem.
    2008 Aug 22 08:59 AM Reply
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    Hey milkchaser, Taxing the hell out of everyone including the poor isn't the answer. Shrinking the government and eliminating the federal income tax is. America did just fine before the federal income tax and the federal reserve. There are other ways to have operating expenses for the fed. government than by taxing the people..
    2008 Aug 22 09:03 AM Reply
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    Milkchaser,
    Interestingly, Buffet admitted last night that he pays less taxes than his cleaning lady.... so much for your statistics on the rich and their share of 90% of taxes...
    Besides, the rich CEO's who are making millions as they swindle their company pension plans and company stocks seem to be making out rather nicely as well.... so tell me where is their pain relative to the average Joe?
    2008 Aug 22 09:10 AM Reply
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    The underlying problem is leadership. No politician wants to tell the truth and certainly no politician wants to do anything about the problems because real solutions are painful. Pain equates to not being elected and more importantly not being re-elected.

    Already we are hearing the same old platitudes and promises from both Obama and McCain. Neither one has the vision much less the recognition of the extent of the threat to our national security and our way of life from the financial mismanagement of this great nation.

    As long as partisanship clouds our political system and blinds our so called "leaders", nothing will be accomplished and the American people will suffer from their negligence and incompetence.

    Frankly, I see little hope unless we can muster an alternative political party immune to the corrupt influences of special interests and of self-serving political hacks.
    2008 Aug 22 09:14 AM Reply
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    my wife and i, born and raised americans by the way, saw the movie last night, great info and well done

    regardless of your position on any of the many critical issues brought up by the film, if people can start talking about the problems, actually admitting that they are there, there won't be any need for name calling

    the goal is to create better lives for ourselves and our families
    2008 Aug 22 09:23 AM Reply
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    I enjoyed the article. And thank you, CrossProfit, for that link.
    2008 Aug 22 09:26 AM Reply
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    There are three ways out of this mess: reduce spending, increase taxes or both
    2008 Aug 22 10:01 AM Reply
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    Well, I went tonight, and in a word ..... disappointed. In no particular order,

    - Too much attention given to Bob Bixby and David Walker spreading the message rather than "the message"
    - Not nearly enough attention given to where gov't is spending our money and how it gets approved.
    - Videos of old people travelling around talking to old people aren't going to inspire anyone, esp. the young who need to be energized to participate
    - Warren Buffett's comments while probably accurate significantly undermined the urgency to take action
    - If health care is the big issue, they should have focused on this from beginning of discussion instead of it coming up 30 min into it
    - Hated the music at the end of movie. Too sappy and no one will remember it. Missed a great opportunity to do something people would remember and reinforce the message
    - Really liked Peterson and thought he hit problem squarely when he said something to the effect that problem won't get attention because is spans past the Congressional term and gets in the way of their real job which is to get re-elected.
    - Questions from audience too obviously planted

    As much as I hate to say it, this is documentary that needed Michael Moore's help or at least someone who could energize it. I was expecting something much better.

    BTW, I'd guess there were maybe 50 people in our theater.
    2008 Aug 22 10:05 AM Reply
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    Register and vote? That should only be on the list of solutions if you have accepted "the message." Otherwise, you are just adding to the demand side of the equation.

    Also, consider priorities. People first. Always people before bombs and bullets. Ike was right about those interests which would seek to exploit fear to hijack the Treasury. You hearin' me Cheney Bush?
    2008 Aug 22 10:58 AM Reply
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    thank you milkchaser... your idiotic comments are a perfect description of the denial and ignorance that have fueled this looming disaster
    2008 Aug 22 11:01 AM Reply
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    I'd suggest balancing the viewpoints in IOUSA with regular reading of Steve Conover, who actually uses data. Qualitative discussion, ideas, and hypotheses are great, but take a look at the numbers, too!

    www.optimist123.com/
    2008 Aug 22 11:21 AM Reply
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    unfortunately, I missed the first hour due to work. My theater wasnt full, but I did have to sit next to the wall. I think everyone should see it. Im buying the DVD when it comes out and showing it to everybody i know. A note to Kelly Lieberman. Buffet pays 15% on a billion dollars, his maid pays 15.3% on 40,000. Who pays more taxes????
    2008 Aug 22 12:00 PM Reply
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    mouse85 is that a trick question? Would you rather have $850m or $34k after taxes?
    2008 Aug 22 02:02 PM Reply
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    I've not yet seen the movie but I am intimately familiar with the top. The answer: to me is obvious - and this may piss some people off. But the mess that we are in is one the Lyndon Johnson *legislated*
    - here it is M E D I C A R E... of the 55T of the problem MEDICARE is the vast majority of it.

    So I appreaciate the fact that a bunch of old AARP farts have legislated themselves a system that can give them a heart transplant when they are 80 years old and will likely only prolong their life by 2 years, but WHEN MY GENERATION takes over, your entitlements will be drastically reduced. NO heart transplant for you geezer. So you BETTER start saving your money so you can pay for it.

    That is essentially the problem here, the US, unlike china, has promised to give everything to a select group of old people (low birthweight babies as well - but that is another subject). Guess what, won't happen mr. Baby Boomer, so start actiing like it wont. Don't wait until we have a crisis and we (the people) but the gun to the head of the politicians to fix this mess that you have created.

    I, personally, for all the world to see, forego treatment of my medical ailments when i reach the age of 80 - let me dye in peace and use the money on the young, the ones that will actually HELP keep america strong... not some parasite who just wants to choke up the golf course every day.

    And with a stroke of a pen, this will happen. Get ready.
    2008 Aug 22 02:05 PM Reply
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    Here's a simple and effective fix to our problems: THROW THE BUMS OUT!!!!

    Piss poor leadership = piss poor performance, end of story. Being 30 years old, it sickens me to see the catastrophic future which will be passed to my generation, and most likely the last "generation" of the American Dream. Thanks for nothing.
    2008 Aug 22 02:29 PM Reply
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    Saw this movie last night and thought it was a needed wake-up call for the majority of Americans.
    There's also a companion book coming out soon, check it out: www.amazon.com/I-O-U-S...
    2008 Aug 22 02:31 PM Reply
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    wyosteven

    The problem is that we, as americans, WANT to be lied to ... and told that everything will be ok...
    2008 Aug 22 02:51 PM Reply
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    How about giving illegal immigrants mortgages loans... I think that would be a few million hard-working, frugal households, with multiple workers, who have been saving money for a while now. That would help fill vacant home and create a bottom in the housing market. During which time they could contibute taxes to the economy, followed by their initiation as citizens, after paying another fine to the government. On the other hand, who would want to see formerly illegal immigrants walking into the front-door of their foreclosed home as they pack all their belongings into their soon-to-be repossesed bmw's, and were forced to compete and earn before they spend.
    2008 Aug 22 03:10 PM Reply
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    Does no one besides me find it extremely ironic (and at times bordering on enfuriating) that the man behind this project (Peterson) is the same person who exploited the same cheap debt that he now rails against in order to enrich himself and the other Blackstone insiders?

    It's easy to see how PE firms for years were able to take advantage of the Equity vs. Debt arbitrage. Sell Debt (and pay 6-9% interest) to buy equity and pledge the FCF to back your creditworthiness. If the project fails, its the company, not Blackstone, which gets downgraded to junk. This does not have any effect on future BX buyouts. The concept is very similar to an individual buying an income producing asset (like a farm), defaulting, and then blaming the land for being unable to produce enough to stay afloat. This is of course not the case in the real world, as the farmer would lose his lose and all of his other personal assets. After a BX owned company defaults, the company's assets get pledged to pay down the debt, and Blackstone walks away with a loss on its 25% or so initial equity investment, which it has buy now probably recouped through paying itself dividends (by, no surprise here, issuing more junk debt). And at the tail end of this fairy tale, BX ends up dumping the majority of its tax liabilities on the fools who bought into its IPO (check out the Prospectus for some interesting reading).

    Peterson and his firm had exploited this for years, and now that it comes time to finally retire, why not remind Americans how grave of a debt problem we have on our hands and how we will need to cope with higher taxes in order to pay down the deficit.

    PE has been the biggest beneficiary of cheap debt and it's quite angering to be reminded of the problems it causes by Blackstone's founders...

    2008 Aug 22 04:47 PM Reply
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    Kelly, I believe Buffet's point is that his cleaning lady pays more as a %-age of her income. No way she pays more at the bottom line. Buffet can pay all he wants. All he has to do is write the check. Why doesn't he? But the top 50% of earners pay 96% of all federal income tax. That's a fact and you can look it up. It's nothing new.

    The rich may pay a smaller percentage of their income, but they still shell out lots of dough. The money they don't get to keep is money they don't get to invest, spend or otherwise employ. Is that money best spent by Congress? How many jobs created or sustained per dollar spent by Congress vs. per dollar spent by private investors? How productive are gov't workers vs. non-gov't workers?

    I'm actually very much against raising taxes, but if you want to maximize the revenue haul (as well as economic productivity) you would raise rates on poor people. It would not be considered fair, but you could raise enough dough to do anything gov't could want to do.

    It's a lousy idea, but it proves that people are not serious about erasing the IOUs through taxation or they'd propose a shared-pain approach. They propose soaking the rich, but the money just ain't there. To raise serious moolah, you have to skim from the wide shallow ocean of low-earners rather than the very narrow, very deep rivulets of high-earners. Plus, sharing the pain would transfer pressure on Congress to reduce spending. As logical as this is, it would never fly in a democracy. "Soak the rich" is a much easier sell.

    My point is that the only solution is to force Congress by Constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Any other solution harms the poor. If you tax the poor, they are directly harmed. If you tax corporations and the rich, you harm everybody else indirectly (through job loss and lower economic output). And Congress is not going to volunteer to cut spending, they just won't. As xsuddensam pointed out, their job is to get re-elected. You have to take the deficit spending option off the table.

    But xsuddensam is wrong that McCain spouts the same old rhetoric. He is a proven spending slasher. He ran on that back in 2000. We'd have been better off in most ways if he'd won the GOP nomination back then, despite his refusal to back economy boosting tax rate cuts.

    Better late than never.
    2008 Aug 22 06:01 PM Reply
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    If Buffet's maid could do what Buffet could do, she'd be a billionaire, too (eventually). There's no law against her buying the same stocks he does.
    2008 Aug 22 06:06 PM Reply
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    I too saw the film. Our theater had less than 100.
    I too think that everyone should pay at least some tax. This is needed
    because everyone needs a stake in the system.

    As it is now, many on the low end not only don't pay, they get back money they didn't earn. In this case you have a group that is very
    happy to get more and more from everyone else.

    I thought Buffet's remarks were just sort of 'Rah, Rah' for the U.S.
    and I thought he was largely wrong. Predicting the future from the past
    is impossible.

    Very worthwhile film. Even if there was nothing particularly new, it
    did a great job of arrangement and illustration of the dire path this
    country is now on.

    I would like to see much smaller gov't using the thesis that the gov't
    should only do what the people cannot do for themselves. Clearly,
    this is not the current case.

    McCain portrays himself as a cost cutter and fighter against pork. That may be, but all that wasteful spending is a very tiny percent of our problem. As the film illustrates, the problem is healthcare. It seems obvious that our legislators should focus on that area of spending. There is no reason why we cannot have a great system that is cost
    effective. Now the U.S. spends 22 cents for every healthcare dollar
    on adminstration. Compare that with Tiawan that has a decent healthcare system and spends less than a nickel of each dollar on
    admin. costs.

    Regarding statements that were made in the film that our national legislatures were envisioned to be only part time people with careers back home I would note that even though we supposedly have full time legislators.
    they still only work as if they are part time.
    2008 Aug 22 06:51 PM Reply
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    Most people just do not get it. The U.S. owes so much because our gov`t is so wasteful. We give billions to nations all over the world, illegals, housing, food stamps, all medical expenses and grants, (far more than the cost of the war), pork bills passed to build bridges to nowhere, study a frogs sex life & on & on. There seems to no end to the waste. Where does the money come from? Uncle sam borrows it from the Federal Reserve and where does the Fed. get the money?. The Fed buys the money from the U.S. gov`t. printing office at cost which at last count was $22.00 for 100 paper bills.(one hundred $100. bills would be $10,000. for $22.00. Now the Fed loans the money back to the gov`t. with interest which the gov`t. cannot pay back & have to keep borrowing more, etc, etc. What is the Federal Reserve? It is NOT part of our gov`t. The Fed is a private corp. owned by several of the large banks. This is known as the great swindle, set up by the big banks in the U.S. and England and a few wealthy individuals. They then established the Federal Income Tax so the gov`t. could get the money to pay the loan. Now you know why Ron Paul would get rid of the income tax and the Federal Reserve. Dr. Paul knows how to get this country back on its feet. We, the people, let the media get away with ignoring Dr. Paul and keeping him out of the news. He is the only one of all the contenders for President who knows what to do & is willing to buck the establishment. It isn`t too late to put him in office, but it won`t happen. People are too complacent. If we put the wrong person in office, we will have so much CHANGE, our country will never get back to normal.
    2008 Aug 22 07:51 PM Reply
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    we get what we pay for. we have a military larger then all the other countries militaries combined. what are we afraid of? cut the military to 1/4th its present size, what a waste of money and people. put our money into education. then people would have something other then fear to base their decisions on. that single payer health care system, that is so often derided in business circles, is just what business needs. take the cost of health care off business's back and let them play on a level field with other industrialized countries. this "the usofa is a country of individuals," is just another way of saying keep us all divided so we never feel the strength of being a country united. what does it mean to love the USofA? keep away from my stuff, its mine, go away. nice, real nice.
    2008 Aug 22 09:13 PM Reply
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    I am absolutely amazed that after years of failed government programs, such as:

    1) Education -- Private schools spend, on average, one-third what public schools spend, yet have better test scores and quality of learning.

    2) Health care -- medicare/medicaid is riddled with fraud

    3) Socialism -- social security is a joke, and that 14.2% of your paycheck could be FAR better invested privately

    Yet people are STILL talking about giving the government MORE money through taxation!?! Have we learned nothing? The government has ONE (count it: one) solution to every single problem it ever faces: throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away. That's why we're in this mess.

    Throwing more money at the government so it can throw that money away on its self-created problems is NOT a solution. Returning to some form of Constitutional govenment *is* a solution. We are supposed to be a Republic, not a Socialist state. The more the government gets involved in re-distribution of income, the more we move toward socialism, the greater our debt becomes. We need to cut spending, slash the entitlement programs, and return absolutely as many programs as we can to the private sector.

    Are we really this stupid, that people still believe the very same government that created our problems can get us out of those problems if we just give it more money? C'mon people. THINK.
    2008 Aug 23 08:31 AM Reply
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    I.O.U.S.A. was a disappointment .I went into the advanced showing expecting Ron Paul type truth. But instead left with the same feelings of frustration that I always feel when I'm being lied to by the MSM. The movie points out the obvious " this country is in a financial state of emergency ". Yet the main cause of the problem ( the Federal Reserve Bank ) was deceptively glossed over.The gist was that the American people, especially the baby boomer generation are to blame for the current state of affaires because of spending beyond our means.That is the grain of truth so popular with the propagandists.
    After the movie, It was suggested by a live panel of "experts " David Walker (Former GAO head), Pete Peterson, Warren Buffet, Bill Niskanen (CATO Institute), and Bill Novelli (AARP). that a saving account and working harder and into our 70's is the solution.
    Yes, there was an old clip of Dr. Paul humiliating Greenspan. However that sound bite would have one conclude that the problem was a result of Greenspans personal incompetence rather than the fact that the Federal Reserve Bank itself is the real culprit. The film was dangerously misleading. Just another lie with a grain of truth. Ron Paul's presence in the film only served to legitimize the lie. I believe that if Ron would have seen the finished product he would have not participated.
    Hey baby boomers apparently we are the new enemy within. Just like Hitler declared that the Jews were enemy's of the state, this movie hints that our economic problems are a result of our generations selfish greed and fiscal irresponsibility. After all most of us are living like kings and we have never had to really work very hard.( sarcasm ). However there is a grain of truth to that but the real truth is that the connected elected along with world bankers have stolen this country's wealth , now with that said.This will become the new trend
    www.usnews.com/blogs/p...
    Seems like a good way to divide the country even more.Get the next generation to blame us and force us to work till the day we die all the wile dictating how we save our money.Then the next generation will come of age.The movies solution is new leadership that will address our over spending and get this, we need forced saving accounts and the baby boomers need to work longer even into our 70's. OK lets put more money into savings accounts so bankers can loan even more on our deposits and get richer on the intrust . And get used to the idea of working till the day you die. Sounds like a blue print for slavery to me
    2008 Aug 23 11:11 AM Reply
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    Yes this Documentary was very good, I keep seeing people saying that the Federal reserve is the problem and I do not see it or at least the people that say that do not support the argument.
    2009 Jun 21 08:06 PM Reply