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I.O.U.S.A. Review
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Aug. 24th, 2008 | 10:31 pm
In a lot of ways my watching this documentary was preaching to the converted. On the other hand I wanted to see the Town Hall Afterwards with Warren Buffet, the greatest stock investor of all time, and David Walker, one of the 5 or so people I know personally that I most respect.
I went to the see it at the Hoffman 22 near the Telegraph Road exit of the Beltway. The theater was not packed by any stretch of the imagination but was about 60%-75% full, which I thought was phenominal for a weekday evening showing of a documentary. It was shown at about 400 theaters nationwide. Reports the day after to the "5-Minute Forecast", a newsletter from Agora Financial, the producers of the film, say that they ranged from sold out to virtually empty. At the Hoffman the crowd seemed to be dominated by the 20-40 range, though there was a mix. (In other words I seemed to be one of the older people in the theater, but not the oldest by a far stretch.) Which is probably encouraging as they are the ones who are going to be stuck iwth the bill if noting is done
I went to the see it at the Hoffman 22 near the Telegraph Road exit of the Beltway. The theater was not packed by any stretch of the imagination but was about 60%-75% full, which I thought was phenominal for a weekday evening showing of a documentary. It was shown at about 400 theaters nationwide. Reports the day after to the "5-Minute Forecast", a newsletter from Agora Financial, the producers of the film, say that they ranged from sold out to virtually empty. At the Hoffman the crowd seemed to be dominated by the 20-40 range, though there was a mix. (In other words I seemed to be one of the older people in the theater, but not the oldest by a far stretch.) Which is probably encouraging as they are the ones who are going to be stuck iwth the bill if noting is done
David Walker was in many ways the star of the film. Thought there was a financial geek's "A-List" of others. Warren Buffett, "Easy Al" Greenspan (my knickname for him), Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neal commenting on getting fired for trying to inject some reality into the Shrub's world, The Honorable Rep. Dr. Ron Paul grilling Easy Al, and others.
The film opens with a montage of sound-bytes from various State of the Union Addresses showing that the essential problem has not been unknown, but unlikely to be fixed by current political processes. One misstep they made is toward the end there is a voice over talking about how future leadership will be needed and they show a quick clip of Senators McCain, and Clinton, but not Obama.
There is then a discussion of four Deficits that the US is experiencing - Fiscal (ie Federal Budget), Trade, Savings, and Leadership.
They mention how the US is becoming increaingly vulnerable to a form of fiscal bullying that we pulled on the British and French to get them to back off of the Suez Canal due to the large amount of our debt held by other countries, particularly China.
A lot is also said about the $56 Trillion in unfunded promises and how the status quo is not going to solve the problem.
After the film there was a Live Town Hall in Omaha where a panel consisting of Warren Buffett, Peter Peterson, Former Comerce Secretary, founder of the Blackstone Group, and creater of the Peter Peterson Foundation to promote fiscal education, Dave Walker, currently CEO of the Peterson Foundation, and the heads of the CATO Institute and AARP.
4 of the 5 were in solid agreement that there was a serious problem to address. The shocker was that the 5th, Warren Buffett said at the top he would be playing the Polyanna role and proceeded to say everything is wonderful, America has a way of solving problems and the pie would naturally grow so everything would be just peachy. Dave Walker clearly wanted to call him on it but there wasn't a lot of time. There were other non-surprising disagreements - the head of the CATO Instituted mentioned privatizing Social Security, and the head of AARP denouced it as a bad idea.
In all I was really disappointed in Warren. His stance really robbed the Town Hall of a lot of its punch. Given that he himself has started diversifying out of the dollar, and had been interviewed in the film talking about how bad the Trade Deficit was in the long run, I found his comments mystifying. From the comments I heard afterwards leaving the theater, so did the rest of the audience.
One point that was brought up was that in order for change to happen, the electorate has to change to reward politician who make the tough choices and punish ones who don't. Whether this is possible, I unfortunately have my doubts. Bush 41 did the right thing and was defeated for re-election. Bush 43 did the wrong things and was re-elected. This is of course what Dick Cheney meant when he said "We learned under Reagan that deficits don't matter." He wasn't speaking fiscally, he was speaking politically. No one loses an election for giving people what they want even if it means running a deficit.
The film opens with a montage of sound-bytes from various State of the Union Addresses showing that the essential problem has not been unknown, but unlikely to be fixed by current political processes. One misstep they made is toward the end there is a voice over talking about how future leadership will be needed and they show a quick clip of Senators McCain, and Clinton, but not Obama.
There is then a discussion of four Deficits that the US is experiencing - Fiscal (ie Federal Budget), Trade, Savings, and Leadership.
They mention how the US is becoming increaingly vulnerable to a form of fiscal bullying that we pulled on the British and French to get them to back off of the Suez Canal due to the large amount of our debt held by other countries, particularly China.
A lot is also said about the $56 Trillion in unfunded promises and how the status quo is not going to solve the problem.
After the film there was a Live Town Hall in Omaha where a panel consisting of Warren Buffett, Peter Peterson, Former Comerce Secretary, founder of the Blackstone Group, and creater of the Peter Peterson Foundation to promote fiscal education, Dave Walker, currently CEO of the Peterson Foundation, and the heads of the CATO Institute and AARP.
4 of the 5 were in solid agreement that there was a serious problem to address. The shocker was that the 5th, Warren Buffett said at the top he would be playing the Polyanna role and proceeded to say everything is wonderful, America has a way of solving problems and the pie would naturally grow so everything would be just peachy. Dave Walker clearly wanted to call him on it but there wasn't a lot of time. There were other non-surprising disagreements - the head of the CATO Instituted mentioned privatizing Social Security, and the head of AARP denouced it as a bad idea.
In all I was really disappointed in Warren. His stance really robbed the Town Hall of a lot of its punch. Given that he himself has started diversifying out of the dollar, and had been interviewed in the film talking about how bad the Trade Deficit was in the long run, I found his comments mystifying. From the comments I heard afterwards leaving the theater, so did the rest of the audience.
One point that was brought up was that in order for change to happen, the electorate has to change to reward politician who make the tough choices and punish ones who don't. Whether this is possible, I unfortunately have my doubts. Bush 41 did the right thing and was defeated for re-election. Bush 43 did the wrong things and was re-elected. This is of course what Dick Cheney meant when he said "We learned under Reagan that deficits don't matter." He wasn't speaking fiscally, he was speaking politically. No one loses an election for giving people what they want even if it means running a deficit.