I O U S A

[syrakusos]

Ron Paul reduces Alan Greenspan to a cinder in a movie I never expected to see here in the People's Republic of Ann Arbor. IOUSA, produced by Agora Financial, is a large lesson in economics, broken in four segments:

the Federal deficit

the Trade deficit

the Savings deficit

the Leadership deficit.

Agora Financial

IOUSA the Movie

IMDB Entry

Nominally "non-partisan" the film centers on Robert Bixby, (The Concord Coalition) and David Walker (formerly U.S. Comptroller-General). They hold townhall meetings to explain to people that America is $53 trillion in debt.

Cleaning up the federal budget will not solve the problem. Pet projects, earmarked funding, and wasteful spending are considerable, but at most, just over 10% of the problem combined. Social security, Medicare A&B and Medicare D tilt the table away from the military outlays.

Inflation destroys savings and without savings there can be no domestic investment. Thus, capital must come from overseas. Ron Paul got more air time than Alan Greenspan and Greenspan did not come off well, though Paul Volker did.

The section on the Trade Deficit lacked rigor.

The leadership crisis was vaguely explained, to keep matters "non-partisan." President Clinton got the credit for the balanced budget of his administration.

All in all, it was an interesting movie. My wife and I had a good time and a lively discussion over dinner ... paid for with a credit card, of course...