I received an email suggesting that I watch “I.O.U.S.A.” this past weekend on CNN, and I did. I’ve been engaged in a little email correspondence about the movie since then, and since my latest email is practically a full blog post I’m going to post it here. My original question was “What was the point to this movie?” and the response was “The point of the movie was to wake americans up to the economic problems the USA faces.” Here’s my next response:

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If the point of “I.O.U.S.A” was wake Americans up to our economic woes, I think it was lacking. Economic problems don’t just appear randomly like weather events. They have specific causes, but it’s those causes that this movie refuses to address. It tries to stay agnostic when it comes to determining the cause of the problems it’s supposed to warn us about. But since those causes resulted in those problems, and the problems are what we don’t want, they can’t be ignored. It’s actually the causes that we have to focus on, not ignore.

I don’t have an exact quote, but later in the movie the narrator says something to the equivalent of, “No matter what you think caused this problem…” and then later “It’s only a question of *when* this will
happen unless we change.” Well, how can they say *when* when they haven’t identified the *what*? And how can we change something when we don’t know what causes the problems?

Imagine if a fireman took this approach when giving a presentation to school kids about the dangers of fire.

Fireman: “Ok, kids, fire is very dangerous. It burns things, including people. Questions?”

Kid 1: “How can I prevent fires from starting at my home?”

Fireman: “Sorry kid, that falls outside the scope of this discussion. I’m here to tell you that fire is bad. Next?”

Kid 2: “What should I do if a fire starts?”

Fireman: “There are many possible actions available to you, but all I can say right now is that if you come across fire you should do something to change the situation.”

I’ll take my criticism of this movie one level deeper. So far as this movie refuses to acknowledge the role that government intervention has played in getting us here, it actually makes the problem worse.
Instead of alerting Americans to the problems that government intervention has caused, it tricks them into thinking that more government intervention is the cure! The CNN discussion after the movie is a great example. While discussing the fact that Americans don’t save money, one of the moderators suggested (while smiling) that the government “force” or “strongly suggest” that Americans save. Nobody on the discussion panel batted an eye, including the two men that were actually behind the making of “I.O.U.S.A!” That type of discussion is the type of “waking up” that this movie brings to those that watch it.

I have only one positive thing to say about the movie. It smashes the myth of the “budget surplus” that Clinton fans are so proud of. It shows that the “surplus” is actually just a temporary overage in Social Security income versus payouts, and those “surplus” dollars will still have to be made up later.

That aside, I’m giving the movie two big thumbs down. It’s hard enough to get people to look honestly at our economic problems and see that the free market is the victim, not the culprit. This movie just muddies that issue even more. I’d rather try to argue with an environmentalist who had just watched “An Inconvenient Truth” than an average person who had just watched “I.O.U.S.A.”

Darren