I attended a movie at the recently established Peoria Theater on Saturday. It’s located in the Landmark Plaza; two of the screens that used to be part of the old Landmark Cinemas (later Nova, currently Reynolds) now make up the new independent film theater. In addition to the usual popcorn and soda, you can also buy beer and other alcoholic beverages, making the place an adults-only (over 21) establishment.
I went to see the film “I. O. U. S. A.,” about the skyrocketing national debt and its implications. You can see an abbreviated (30-minute) version of the film at their website and on YouTube.
Admission was inexpensive ($5), as was the popcorn and soda — at least, for a movie theater ($7 total for both). The screen was small, but the theater was clean, and they showed real film, not a DVD on an LCD projector like another local theater. At 4:45 on a Saturday, it turned out to be a private screening, since I was the only one there for this particular film. The service was friendly, and it was a pleasant experience overall.
The film itself, however, was as interesting as it was depressing. It chronicled America’s budget deficit over the life of the country, as well as its more recent deficits in savings, trade, and leadership. The film mainly focuses on the work of Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition (a “non-partisan, grassroots organization advocating generationally responsible fiscal policy”) and former U.S. Comptroller-General David Walker, who is now the President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (whose mission is “to increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America’s future and accelerate action on them”).
The problem in America, according to the filmmakers, is that we spend more than we produce. It’s a problem that plagues the nation from federal policymakers to individual citizens. We’re living beyond our means, feeling a false sense of wealth due to easy credit. And whereas your personal debts will more or less die with you, the public debt will be passed on to the next generation to pay.
Furthermore, because of our savings deficit in America, most national debt is held by foreign countries, which leads to some sobering implications. One that the movie points out is our vulnerability to “financial war.” This is where a creditor country can pressure a debtor country into modifying its policies by threatening to tighten credit. They use the example of the Suez Crisis when the U.S. forced our allies into a cease fire with Egypt by threatening to sell part of the U.S. investment in British government bonds, which would have significantly devalued the pound. As Proverbs 22:7 says, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”
I thought the film was well-done (production-wise), although I certainly haven’t seen as many documentaries as the Washington Post movie critics, who panned the film for being formulaic. I thought the slick graphics made a difficult topic easy to understand. Also, the movie moved at a good pace.
Substantively, the conclusions drawn by the filmmakers are, naturally, not universally held. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has published a paper titled, “IOUSA Not OK: An Analysis of the Deficit Disaster Story in the Film IOUSA,” in which the authors (Dean Baker and David Rosnick) give a real-time, point-by-point counterargument. While they take issue with several points made in the movie, the main thrust of the report is their contention that health care costs are the major culprit causing dire debt projections, and that if the country can rein in these costs, national budget deficits and their resulting debt will be no big deal:
The federal government pays for almost 50 percent of the country’s health care costs through Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care programs. Almost all of the payments in these programs go to private sector health care providers (hospitals, doctors, nursing homes etc.). The government projects that private sector health care costs will rise far more rapidly than the economy grows. This assumption leads to projections of massive deficits in the next few decades.
While these projections of exploding health care costs imply that budget deficits will be a huge problem, if the United States can contain its health care costs, then budget deficits will be very manageable….
In other words, the real problem facing the country is a broken health care system. If health care costs continue to grow at the projected rate, then future generations will see relatively little gain in their living standards, even if we eliminate all government spending on health care.
Nevertheless, if something isn’t done about the health care crisis, then projections are that the debt will rise not only in real dollars, but as a percentage of gross domestic product. Even critics of the film agree that this scenario would be bad for the country. Whatever the solution is, something needs to be done soon to address this issue.
CJ: Mosaic law forbid the charging of interest and mandated that debts be forgiven every seven years. Deuteronomy & Leviticus.
Christ confirmed the Mosaic law publicly.
Christ confirmed the moral justification for the law in the parable of the talent and of the debtor.
Christ’s one act of violent force was the taking of whip to the lenders and the money changers in the Temple.
Within the a week of violently and publicly removing the financiers from the temple, His crucifiction was bought for 30 pieces of silver.
The national debt is a result of the selling out of religious leaders to corporate/financial interests and selling out to the largest, corporate financial interest of them all – the US Government.
The government is not the country and the country is not the people.
Well, C.J. welcome to the inevitable result of Laisse Faire Capitalism. As long as property can be owned by individuals and their families in perpetuity, whether it is land, water, air or the resources thereof, this is the result predicted and promised by Karl Marx, Tecumseh (the great Shawnee Chief) and many others more than 100 years ago.
You could nearly cross the Grand Canyon with that leap of logic kcdad. The ever increasing national debt used primarily to increase the ability of our government to provide socialistic programs is a result of laisse faire capitalism? I’ll take the pot calling the kettle black for $500 Alex…
CJ – I highly recommend the movie “Marley and Me” 😉
Why would anyone consider a program which pays taxpayer money to private enterprise and corporations a “socialistic program”. Sounds more like the “Medical Mafia” to me.
Look out Evel Knievel: Compare the expense of social programs with the cost of bailing out corporate interests (that includes the cost of war, because that is the purpose of war) … keep in mind that personal income taxes are three times those of corporate taxes… (why is that?)
The reason gov’t regulates businesses is because of what happened in the late 1800’s, when a few Capitalist “fittest survivors” became monopolies and exploited both the government and the workers with extortion-like demands.
The natural tendency for a capitalist business is total control of the market… (For example… Walmart, ATT, US Steel, Microsoft… etc etc etc) Monopolies are not efficient or rational; they are abusive and oppressive. Expansion and Growth is the Gospel of Capitalism.
So, businesses tend toward monopoly. It means there should be regulation (or, more aptly, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act should be enforced), but Governments tend toward monopolies of power, which is much worse. We all know power tends to corrupt, and the more the power, the more the corruption. Bailing out AIG, Freddie, Fannie, and all the others was bad policy, but it was caused by over-reaching, extra-constitutional government, its not the “fault” of capitalism. We have lost our principles. Frankly, financial collapse is all but inevitable.
It is the “fault” of a system that values things over people. Period. End of story. Capitalism values things. Workers are no different from property. That is why they are called Human Resources. We are valuable only for our ability to make someone else wealthy…
THAT is pathetic.
“bailing out” business is not a tenet of capitalism either, that’s the problem with bailouts. Failure would be the choice of capitalism, socialist elected officials and bureaucrats believe in bailouts. And yes, I do understand Bush is just as guilty of that as the new administration. And war and corporations are not intrinsically connected. War has for a very long time been considered an extension of the political system, not that there couldn’t be a corporate influence at some point but it is not necessarily related.
Capitalism doesn’t value things, it values ( and compensates accordingly) the varying gifts of its participants. Communism (and to an extent socialism) place no value in the person what so ever. They are merely cattle that must be processed through the system. And in those systems power is centralized in the hands of fewer people than would ever be possible through a capitalist system. But what the hell, let’s give it a try because it has worked so well every where else it has been practiced…
The capitalistic system is the best system humans have ever devised, warts and all. No other system has brought more prosperity and freedoms to more people than capitalism. It is a system that has helped enrich and shape the best of men, societies and nations known to humankind. It is a system that has helped advance mankind like no other system could. But it is not a system without problems. No system can avoid the destructive influences of defects inherent in individual human character. But it is a system that relies on the individual and no system offers more freedom to the individual to excel to his self betterment as well as to the enrichment of his fellow man . Capitalism does not “value things” over people as some would have you believe, but it does have a sense of self-esteem, so to speak. If capitalism actually “valued things” over people then GM would be sitting with billions in cash on its balance sheet even with its margins.
Marxism, though, is the system where one can never excel and is just another gear in the machine slogging away until it is worn and needs replacement. Marxism is the system which “value things” over the individual. It is a weight that is placed upon the individuals back keeping his ideas, motivations stagnant and from realization and actualization. How can you move forward or realize your potential when all you are at this very moment is all that you can or will ever be?
I’d like to hear of one Marxist society that has flourished as much as a capitalist society. I know that Lenin flourished and had numerous dachas throughout Russia all gained on the backs of the proletariat. Tito flourished and had several villas in the mountains and on the Adriatic gained on the backs of the proletariat. Castro is said to be worth 500 million – $10 million/year salary as dictator isn’t bad compared to what Obama is making as president. You’d think Castro was a Fortune500 CEO. The Chinese leadership started out Marxist/Maoist and yet all live like corrupt, swindling hedge fund managers. But they aren’t hedge fund managers (perhaps Ponzi schemers) — they are all corrupt, swindling leaders of the Chinese nation. And not to mention the other countless crimes and injustices these proponents of Marxism and the worker are guilty. At least a Bernie Madoff, Richard Fuld or a Richard Waggoner were only disastourous businessmen and not leaders of the country. Their actions or policies will be ironed over in a few years. Marxism it seems needs despots, dictators and decades in order to be implemented, then fail and proved wrong. Capitalism on the other hand only needs a short while to provide stability, prosperity, freedom, justice. But like I said above — capitalism isn’t perfect given human nature but it surely is a much better alternative than Marxism. There are some Americans who disagree with that but they’ve never experienced the Marxist system except for what they see through their rose-colored glasses and then all it is is a rose-colored theory (which would explain why red is so used in their symbolism).
If proponents would like to experience good old Marxism in action then I suggest a move to Venezuela for a couple years festive sabbatical.
As they say, capitalism is the worst system in the world, except for all the others.
Fascinating book to read “The Creature from Jekyll Island” — A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin
In 1913, the same year that the Federal Reserve Act became law, Arsene Pujo of Louisiana was the chairman of the House Committee on Currency and Banking. Interesting to note — Pujo was conisdered to be the spokesperson for the oil interests, one of the groups under investigation. Pujo is reported to have thwarted the efforts of this investigation, nevertheless from the committee’s report….
“Your committee is satisfiedfrom the proofs submitted …. that there is an established and well defined identity and community of interest between a few leaders of finance… which has resulted in great and rapidly growing concentration of the control of money and credit in the hands of these few men….
Under our system of issuing and distributing corporate securities the investing public does not buy directly from the corporation. The securities travel from the issuing house through middlemen to the investor. It is only the great banks and bankers with access to the mainsprings of the concentrated resources made up of other people’s money, in the banks, trust companies, and life insurance companies and with control of the machinery for creating markets and distributing securities, who have had the power to underwrite or guarantee the sale of large-scale security issues. The men who through their control over the funds of our railroads and industrial companies are able to direct where such funds shall be kept, and thus to create these great reservoirs of the people’s money are the ones who are in a position to tap those reservoirs for the ventures in which they are interested and to prevent their being tapped for purposes which they do not approve ….
When we consider, also, in this connection that into these reservoirs of money and credit there flow a large part of the reserves of the banks of the country, that they are also the agents and correspondents of the out-of-town banks in the loaning of their surplus funds in the only public money mark of the country, and that a small group of men and their partners and associates have now furthered strengthened their hold upon the resources of these institutions by acquiring large stock holdings therein, by representation on teir boards and though valuable patronage, we begin to realize something of the extent to which this practical and effective domination and control over our greatest financial, railroad and industrial corporations has developed, largely within the past five years, and that it is fraught with peril to the welfare of the country.”
“Final Report from Pujo Committee, February 28, 1913”, pp. 222-24
Hum, that was then, 1913 and now is now, 2009. Hauntingly familiar?
And yesterday at church — Elder Dallin Oaks shared a conversation he had heard regarding debt.
“People are spending money they don’t have for things they don’t need to impress people they do not like.”
Regrettably very true in the lives of too many people.
Good summation, 11Bravo. And Karrie makes good points, too. Unfortunately, power is much more concentrated now than in 1913.
“As they say, capitalism is the worst system in the world, except for all the others.”
Sterling: That is the type of nonsensical statement that deludes people into thinking Capitalism even exists in any pure form other than pure greed. Capitalism is an exploitative system… it exists to exploit: people, resources and energy. It is “feudalism on steroids”.
There was a joke running through Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet union: “Everything they told about Communism turned out to be a lie. Everything they told us about Capitalism turned out to be true.”
The point being, of course, is that there was no Communism in The Soviet Union, and Capitalism is the enemy of the people.
Did anyone take time to look at Parade magazine yesterday and its What people make story? Remember during the campaign “Joe the Plumber” talking about earning $250,000 a year? … and people took him seriously. The plumber in that article made … what? $39,300? And yet, people still talk about teachers getting paid poorly… right there in front of you was a math teacher making $66,000 for nine months work. The Major in the Marines earned $108,000 last year… poor underpaid military.
Here was the best one:
http://www.parade.com/news/what-people-earn/game/salary-guessing-game.html?type=answer&index=9&showAnswer=true&answer=/system/modules/com.parade/elements/quiz_differentScore/1&score=5
An 8th grade PE teacher earning $72,900… more than a police officer in Baltimore or a paramedic in West Virginia!!!
This one was a beauty:
Crystal Brown, 46
Washington, D.C.
Executive Secretary for
nonprofit organization
$84,400 !!!! NON-profit? For whom?
Very high and mighty for you to assume that you have ANY idea what the value of those individuals are to the organization they work for, but then again I guess that makes sense for someone extolling the virtues of communism.
the joke, kcdad, was NOT that there was no communism in the Soviet Union, but rather that communism failed to produce on its promises. You are such a trip, kcdad. You are obviously bright, but enslaved by a false ideology. The cure for communism is not more communism. Just like the cure for debt is not more debt. Capitalism isn’t perfect, but no system is perfect. No system ever will be perfect. The fact is, capitalism is the best system humans have yet devised. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to try to improve it. But communism and its milder brother, command socialism, have been disastrous every time and everywhere they have been tried. They don’t work. Period. They tempt bright, well-intentioned people because they (mistakenly) believe they can avoid the pitfalls others fell in, and use the power for “good”. But you are deluding yourself. Any time one small group of people set themselves up as “the elites” who know what’s good for “the masses,” and are determined to give it to them, whether they want it or not, it ends up badly. Humans are not meant to play God.
The Mouse: Thank you for once again proving my point…
“The fact is, capitalism is the best system humans have yet devised. ” Well learned, young apprentice!
“But communism and its milder brother, command socialism” Milder? You obviously have NO IDEA what Communism is, or can be.
“Humans are not meant to play God” … ha ha ha!
What do you think LAWS are? What do you think MORALITY is? What do you think COURTS are? POLICE? MEDICINE? God certainly isn’t doing anything about injustice, order, health or peace… Who is it that says we have the right to “own” and sell the Earth, the air, space and the water? God?
Writing platitudes may make you feel better, but it certainly doesn’t get us any closer to the Kingdom of God.
11bravo: “value of those individuals” ???
please, someone tell me I am not hallucinating. Is this not EXACTLY what I have been ranting about? Assigning monetary value to human beings?
No, it’s not. The “value” of something is not monetizing it for monetizing’s sake. It is merely a measurement of an individuals ability to contribute to others. Are you willing to make the argument that EVERY human being contributes to society at the same level of value as every other? Otherwise you don’t have much of an argument…
And you have failed to address the mouse’s concern, and mine from a few months ago, as to how it is you think communism can succeed when so many others have tried before and failed. Please enlighten us, and Lenin, Mao,etc…
11Bravo, kcdad thinks that Lenin, Mao, and all the others were bad people, and if for once good people ran the show, then we would have a socialist utopia, the state will “wither away” and we will all live happily ever after. What he doesn’t seem to grasp, is that the U.S. was constructed to distribute power (legislatures, police, courts, etc.) so there are “checks and balances” and nobody gets too much power – and hence no one gets to be the Fuhrer, Messish, or whatever.
This is a cool discussion………………………
Rome was created as a republic, with a system of “checks and balances” in place. Look what happened to them…………….
11BRAVO: You want to explain how someone contributes more to society than someone else… let’s say the CEO of Caterpillar, FreddieMac or Citibank, Ford or GE, compared to hmmmm… C.J. for example?
How about Alex Rodriguez vs Sharon Crews?
How about Rush Limbaugh vs Chief Settingsgaard?
How much are you worth?
When has it been tried? Neither The Soviet Union nor China claimed to be Communist. They were and are Socialist… with leanings toward market economies.
If you want examples look at small communes, like Kibbutz, or the early Christian church in the first century. The key for Communism to work is COMMUNITY… small groups of interdependent peoples… collectives… coops… families… no property, no capital, no profit.
How can it not succeed, since its idea of success is merely existing. Do you know what the Hebrew name for God means? I AM… Being… Existence. It does mean conquering, killing, being rich, exploiting others, being on the top of the heap, It is is not I AM ________ ( fill in the blank) … it is simply I AM. If you are a Christian, Jew or Muslim… you supposedly worship that God. Not any other.
Lenin claimed to be a Bolshevik Revolutionary -Bolsheviks (or “the Majority”) were an organization of professional revolutionaries under a strict internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism and quasi-military discipline, who considered themselves as a vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat.-… A Marxist Socialist… Mao, a self proclaimed Communist, but instituted a Soviet Republic in China based on Lenin’s Bolshevik ideas.
So, like you, many try and use Communism or Communist as a term to suit their personal needs, but in reality it is a selfless, collective type of group that exists all over the world in many forms… the family being one of them.
The Mouse: That may have been true at one time… I am not sure when since even the Constitution was a sell out to the Southern slave interests… Certainly, it wasn’t in effect when our government stole the land from “sea to shining sea”. In wasn’t in effect when Lincoln changed the rule of State Sovereignty, or when the government sold our treasury to the Federal Reserve, or began its own expansion of empire throughout the world…
Our Congress is hardly independent, as it has been bought and sold by lobbying interests for years. Our courts, show no ability to reason in any consistent way, whether it be in the area of Education and Science, Medicine and Ethics, Human Rights and Religion, or War and Peace. We just had an administration run for 8 years by the Vice President… how much check and balance is there when the Executive of the government is powerless?
You live in a wonderland of patriotic nationalism and ethnocentrism. I highly recommend a book I am reading now called The Year 1000, which chronicles the life of people in England at the close of the first millennium. You will be surprised at how far away from the ideals of our traditions we have come, and how similar to the feudal societies of the past we really are.
How about taking a break and listening to this lady’s amazing voice…..
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92464?fp=1
Lovely… although Paul Potts is still my favorite…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEo5bjnJViA&feature=related
kcdad: It is a toss up between the two!
You can make excuses for just about any argument like “those countries don’t practice communism in the THAT I see it”. But the reality is aside from bloody revolution and the enslavement and enforcement of non-conformers it will never work. When given a choice between being awarded for their uniqueness and skills and being treated as a mindless faceless object people will choose the former, and that is capitalism.
As to who contributes more to society, I don’t have to explain it. The market, which is the collective of its participants, decide who contributes more or whose contributions are of greater value, I don’t have to.
“aside from bloody revolution and the enslavement and enforcement of non-conformers”
I see… are we talking about The United States of America or China, now?
Which country has the largest percentage of its citizens in prison?
“As to who contributes more to society, I don’t have to explain it. The market, which is the collective of its participants, decide who contributes more or whose contributions are of greater value, I don’t have to.”
Yeah… that’s why athletes and other celebrities make more than doctors, counselors, nurses, teachers, engineers, architects, police, fire, paramedics… parents… that’s why men make more than women… whites more than blacks…
Go ahead, allow the “market” to determine a person’s worth…
so who should make all these important decisions in this utopia of yours, kcdad?? something tells me you’d like to be the one in charge.
kcdad, do you go to sporting events or watch them on television or wear clothing bearing a teams name? Just curious…
As to you first point, the idea that you even remotely thought that is laughable. First, do you think you really know the full number of people that China has in prison. That is, do you think they disclose that number? And last time I checked we don’t run over our own people with tanks because they are peacefully protesting, hell we don’t even run them over when they are violently protesting. And we don’t lock non conformists in prison, we pay them welfare. If you want to talk about break laws, what exactly would happen in your utopia when someone steals from another or kills another? I guess since you don’t value individuals anyway probably nothing happens as long as another nobody can plow their row of crops…
I’m all for picking on the museum again.
NV 🙂
NV: Oh that we would spend our money on quality of life issues ….
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x405398856/Flood-help-coming-for-South-Peoria
By the way Phill,
I am not picking on Lakeview and/or PHS specifically. The entire collaboration is in need of a serious overhaul. I just got tired of listening to ‘certain’ people, who believe that the homes are “beautifully decorated,” they look “lovely during the holidays,” etc. Throwing up a few wreaths and a little greenery does not do a thing for area history.
Which reminds me. Anyone know where the city’s Historic Preservation Commission stands on all of this ‘museum business?’
kcdad believes in a utopian socialist community and says I live in a “wonderland”? Is that the pot calling the kettle black or what? If you really believe that, kcdad, get a bunch of like-minded people together, buy an island and try it.
11Bravo… no. Although I do have a Bears jersey (I wish I had number 41) … I don’t consider them very professional, though. They fall into the daytime soap opera category of the entertainment business.
Perhaps you should read a little American History… Did you know that National Guard in Ohio fired live ammunition into a crowd of college students killing 4? Did you know that FBI agents deliberately assassinated Randy Weaver’s wife and baby? Did you know that striking miners and their families (20 people in total) were massacred by the Colorado National Guard troops under the direct orders of the Governor? Did you know that the US Army, routinely rounded up and executed Native Americans in order to gain access to their land. Federal Troops rounding up citizens of Japanese ancestry and throwing them into concentration camps… American citizens of Arab decent into prison and tortured… The IRS and it “secret police” raiding and confiscating private property without warrants or probable cause…
The Mouse: I try it every single day… unfortunately, the society in which I live is obsessed with possessions and it is quite impossible, suicidal, in fact, to try and live as God intended us to here.
Oh, btw… “utopian socialist community” is not a phrase that I have ever used to describe the Kingdom of God. You are proving once again that you do not the difference between Communism, Socialism, Capitalism and Apricots… (Although, you are able to apparently read and understand the “Limbaugh Letter”) Next time spend time with a Political Science and History text book before you decide to share your political and historical ignorance.
THANKS!
11 Bravo: UPDATE.
I have the Brian Piccolo #41 Jersey!