An Inconvenient Truth for the U.S. Economy - I.O.U.S.A.

The "feel-good" movie of the summer, "I.O.U.S.A.", on the uplifting subjects of burgeoning American debt and the coming entitlement tsunami, is set to debut two weeks from today. Movie fans around the country are chomping at the bit.

The seven minute clip above is a combination movie trailer and documentary that should give you an excellent idea of what the movie is all about.

A list of cities where the film will debut is available at FathomEvents - we'll be out of the country at the time or we might go to one just to get a feel for what the public is thinking.

For decades, the deleterious effects of too much debt have been a hard sell - ask Ross Perot or David Walker - but, since the credit crisis began last year that may all be changing.

Here's Paul Volcker on David Walker:

Lots of other "bonus reels" were posted at YouTube yesterday.

Here's a sampling, all with pretty cool graphics - entitlement costs, budget deficits, the savings rate, and the debt-to-GDP ratio:

They probably don't mention how rising asset prices over the last twenty years have made us all so wealthy. Well, that is, up until home prices started dropping like a rock.

They also probably don't talk about the U.S. "growing its way out" of these problems.

It would be nice if, just once, someone in a position of power would tell our foreign creditors, "Look, we have no intention of paying this money back - at least not with money that's worth anything close to what it's worth today. There's no way we can pay it back. But, we'll keep borrowing it as long as you keep lending it to us."