This is a bait-and-switch movie

A lot of people probably think this movie, with an emphasis on deficits and debts, would be pro-free market, and against huge government spending programs. After all, the thing that creates debt is massive irresponsible government spending, which also damages the economy. In fact the movie *suggests* that more taxes for forced savings would be the way to go! It is pure bait-and-switch; a sneaky attempt to get true freedom loving Americans to support more taxation and bigger government. Here are some comments from the always reliable LewRockwell.com:

I.O.U.S.A., I Want a Refund

Writes Stephen Fairfax: "The film was billed as inspired by Empire of Debt, but it is an extraordinarily poor and biased rendering of a very good book. While Bonner and Wiggins provided a thoughtful and entertaining exposition of the entire problem of excessive debt and credit, the movie focussed entirely on government debt. Watching it, one would not know the private sector exists at all. The only significant examples were an American scrapyard contrasted with a new Chinese compact fluorescent lamp factory.

"Before the movie started, a debt clock marked the ever-increasing $55 trillion debt figure calculated by Mr. Walker. But the first 3/4 of the movie focused almost exclusively on the on-budget federal debt and the ratio of national debt to GDP. Why a ratio of two politically rigged and entirely suspect numbers is a useful indication of anything was never discussed. There was some heavy-handed posturing about Clinton and the 'surplus.'

"I checked the index of the book; gold was cited 23 times, government debt 19, David Walker only once. The movie offered a hagiography of Mr. Walker, complete fixation on government debt, and no meaningful mention of gold. The highlight was a brief snippet of Jon Stewart using a few deft questions and his keen insight to force Alan Greenspan to admit that his policy of low interest rates favored Wall Street and hurt savers. Even that was largely muted by the decision to show Mr. Greenspan denying that Fed decisions can influence markets, placed several minutes later where the lie was considerably less obvious.

"The book offered several options for dealing with the debt; the movie had only one: more government. The post-movie 'town hall' was as silly and even worse than I feared. It took only a few minutes before new taxes were proposed under the guise of "forced savings." More than once, the worthies on the stage opined that if several of them were to huddle, they could solve this problem. Of course, their solutions invariably included taking more money from one or another out of favor group. Once again, even so much as the possibility of market solutions was never acknowledged, let alone discussed.

"The notion that government is the source of this problem and unlikely to be the solution was never raised. The book made this point clear, the movie carefully ignored it. The movie focussed exclusively on the problems of paying this government debt; the book explored other, more realistic options, such as repudiation and inflation. The book explored the enormous malinvestments, misallocation of resources, folly, and harm caused by the same policies that allow such a monstrous pyramid of debt and credit to be created in the first place. The movie studiously ignored any mention of the harm these policies have caused to civil society."

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I.R.I.P.O.F.F.U.S.A.

Writes Charles Burris: "I.O.U.S.A., the highly touted fright documentary on America's skyrocketing national debt sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, premiered in 400 theaters across the nation Thursday night. This banal film was actually painful to watch, much worse than I had previously anticipated. Producer Sam Goldwyn's classic quip on 'message movies' applies: 'If you want to send a message, call Western Union.' I.O.U.S.A. told the story of hapless but determined Don Quixote (former U. S. Comptroller General David Walker) and his nerdy but earnest sidekick Sancho Panza from the 'non-partisan' Concord Coalition. This not so dynamic duo have been thanklessly traveling the back roads of America, tilting at monstrous windmills of fiscal irresponsibility and mounting national debt, in the midst of clueless Rotarians and other simple folk of the heartland. Lots of flashy graphs, smoke and mirrors, and prestidigitation with U. S. Treasury figures did not add any luster or substance to this fiasco. The only saving grace of the movie was the brief cameo appearance by Ron Paul, verbally de-pantsing Fed chairman Alan Greenspan at a congressional hearing.

"After the conclusion of the film, the premier's rather schizophrenic benediction was staged by panelists Walker, Peterson, billionaire investor Warren Buffet, chairman William Niskanen of the pro-Fed CATO Institute, and some hack from AARP. In their best 'Ah Shucks, folks' corn pone delivery, they told their assembled Omaha audience (and the multitudes in theaters coast-to-coast, struggling both to keep awake and their dinners down) that the scary bad old film really didn't mean it. Everything is really alright with the U.S.A. We've been in tight scrapes before and we always pulled through. Americans simply must save more and spend less. We need to tighten our belts and cut out all that nasty partisanship in Congress. I kept waiting for Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and the Andrew Sisters to rush onstage and break out in a chorus of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah! Nothing was ever said about our draconian welfare-warfare state, its American Empire based in 130 countries, and their sinister symbiotic relationship with their enablers, the Federal Reserve, the real source of the problem supposedly addressed in the film. But then no one ever expected them to either."