Maxed Out… In Debt We Trust
In Maxed Out, author/director James D. Scurlock (Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders) takes on America’s debt crisis.
Consequently, he touches on related issues like race, corporate malfeasance, and political subterfuge.
Scurlock’s multi-media approach incorporates statistics, news excerpts, and interviews, but it’s rarely dull (comedy bits from Louis CK and tunes from Queen and Coldplay don’t hurt).
Speakers include economic professors, debt collectors, pawn brokers, investigative reporters, beleaguered consumers, and even Robin Leach (Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous).
Instead of New York and Los Angeles, he concentrates on mid-size cities, like Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, and Seattle. Plenty of small towns also come into play.
Though he never presses the point himself, Scurlock allows his subjects to note the similarities between the credit industry and the drug trade (others use such incendiary terms as “rape”).
One thing he neglects to mention, however, is pride. If house payments are ruining your life, selling that property may be the only solution. In most cases, however, it’s hard not to feel for those individuals who didn’t know what they were getting into before they signed their lives away.
For some viewers, this will be a dispiriting documentary–three subjects recount the suicides of relatives who found their debt too much to bear–but in explaining exactly how lenders and creditors make money, Maxed Out can help others to avoid some of their most egregious practices. In other words, debt may be a downer, but knowledge is power.
- Source: Review by Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon.com
Just a few decades ago, owing more money than you had in your bank account was the exception, not the rule. Yet, in the last 10 years, consumer debt has doubled and, for the first time, Americans are spending more than they’re saving — or making.
This April, award-winning former ABC News and CNN producer Danny Schechter investigates America’s mounting debt crisis in his latest hard-hitting expose, IN DEBT WE TRUST.
Sphere: Related ContentWhile many Americans are “maxing out” on credit cards, there is a much deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands…with frightening consequences. IN DEBT WE TRUST reveals a hitherto unknown cabal of credit card companies, lobbyists, media conglomerates and the Bush administration itself, which has colluded to deregulate the lending industry, ensuring that a culture of credit dependency can flourish.
In the film, Schechter exposes the mechanisms and machinations behind the hidden financial and political complex that allows even the lowest wage earners to indebt themselves so heavily that house repossessions have become commonplace. One expert in the film goes so far as to dub this “21st-century serfdom.”
Inspired by scholar Robert Manning - one of the films’ key advisers’ - and his seminal book “Credit Card Nation”, IN DEBT WE TRUST showcases his insights about the impact of debt on young people and our society. It also suggests the kinds of practical efforts needed to empower the public with information to avoid the traps of debt dependency.
The whole world depends on the economic stability of the United States. Yet, as its national and consumer debt escalates, our interconnected global economy is at incredible risk. IN DEBT WE TRUST, as timely and relevant as a film can be, delivers an urgent warning that can’t be ignored.
- Source: In Debt We Trust, Amazon.com
