You may have heard ideas about consumerism, entitlements, and fiscal cancer.
Is there a problem?
Do we as a country sit idle until something reaches a crisis?
Will it be too late to fix anything?
It's easy to get caught up in hype. Book deals, movie tickets, selling commercials on the evening news; there is money to be made in death, disaster, turmoil, and ruin. In a time when most politicians seemingly exist solely to assure the reelection of themselves, the cliched term change is stapled and alligator-clipped to as many ideas as possible. Remember, why would you support an idea or a person with your time and money if they were not distinct.
However...
When smart people say there is a problem:
- Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
- William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute
- Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP
- Pete Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation
- Dave Walker, president & CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General
I think we should gather the facts and listen.
By the way, my answer to the questions above: I don't know.
One thing I do know, is when a movie is created to get an important message across that may fundamentally affect every American, their financial futures, their level of control over their own money, the level of taxes, the strength of the nation and direction of foreign policy, prices and availability of all goods and services, entitlements and our ideas of what it means to be independent, energy availability, how financial behavior is incented... AND.... when 89% of people polled on fandango.com said they don't care...
......it's time to go see it.
The film is called I.O.U.S.A One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt. While I am not a fan of the hyped inconvenient truth like aspects of the film ( yes, I watched that one too), it looks to hold some value as a "Take out your iPod and pay attention!" flick.
We are going to the showing Thursday (8/21/2008) that also includes the live panel with the folks mentioned above. Check back here soon after for our take and for more resources and analysis to help you come to your own conclusion.
Interested in learning more about the ideas and the film:
Our first post that details our initial interest in the set of ideas:
I am also working on a brief question to submit to the forum. If you would like to submit a question of your own you may do so here, or have a specific idea/angle you would like us to submit or address in our analysis later this week, please comment below.
