I.O.U.S.A.: The Condensed Version

By Prieur du Plessis, on November 12th, 2008 posted in: Economy, Investment, Markets, Money

By now you may have heard about the acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A., a film that examines the rapidly growing US national debt and its consequences for the country and its citizens. The film has been a huge hit, receiving mostly pretty good reviews.

The 30-minute version of I.O.U.S.A., designed specifically for watching on the web, has just been released.

So, if you haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet, watch the condensed I.O.U.S.A. for an overview of the staggering amount of money in financial obligations owed by the US federal government to foreign investors and to every single American in the form of pensions, health benefits, Social Security and Medicare.

Click on the image below to view the video clip.

Source: YouTube

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Matt Sherman

November 13, 2008 at 10:13 pm

This movie is really good at scaring you. Some of the projections are absolutely bone-chilling. But it largely overstates the problem — the deficit is currently at a manageable level of 3% of GDP. And we need to run a deficit in this economic downturn to ensure we don’t have skyrocketing rates of unemployment. The flim also ignores one of the best solutions to the “problem” — health care reform. If our health care system were as efficient as other industrialized nations, and if Medicare/Medicaid were able to take advantage of these lower costs, then our deficit problem would basically disappear. Check out the Center for Economic and Policy Research, they have a nice graphic that demonstrates this well: http://www.cepr.net/calculators/iousadeficit/calc_iousa_deficit.html