IOUSA, Aired on CNN Saturday, Jan 10th

Imagine my shock at seeing this video aired during a special CNN panel on the economy. The panel included Bill Bradley and several economists I had not heard of (though admittedly I'm not great at remembering names, so it might be more accurate to say I hadn't seen them before.) Before the panel discussed the situation, the network aired about 45 minutes of the documentary IOUSA, a Youtube version of which I am linking below.


Now, this video doesn't contain anything we who have been discussing this recession don't already know. However, this marked a pointed shift in the main stream media for me as I had not prior seen anything even close to aknowledgement of just how severe things are nor just how deep into a pile of economic disaster this nation has slipped. Furthermore, everyone on the panel supported some form of forced saving similar to what China has in place for every American tax payer. They also discussed the fact that extreme inflation is now inevitable. The panel also made a point to state that, given our current situation, Americans would be forced to accept either a complete shutdown of all government services outside of very basic social security & medicare or else resign ourselves to a tax rate that is more than double what we currently pay for every tax paying worker. That doubling is on top of the government mandated savings rate that they were pushing for.

I'm beginning to wonder if the real low point of this recession where the average American is concerned is actually going to occur after the official recession is long past. Years from now when we are all wallowing in personal stagflation and are essentially working well past each year's halfway point just to pay off the staggering taxes, fees, and forced deductions from every paycheck.

I will also say that each panel member and the two CNN anchors continually used a term that sent chills down my spine and angered me to now end. I've also noticed this trend on FOX and on MSNBC, for what it is worth. The current expression they are all using when describing this ridiculous federal debt is "every American's share" of the debt. Hello furthering of the socialist agenda in America! I do not have a mortgage, I do not have credit card debt, I do not recieve federal aid or assistance of any sort, I have not recieved anything from the government nor has anything been done by said government "for me" which I didn't in some way pay taxes for. I decry the concept that I and other Americans like myself somehow have a "share" of this assinine debt which has been run up against my best interest and wishes.

I am sorry, seems that the embed didn't work. Here is a direct link: www.youtube.com...

Here ya go.

You are definitely right about the "Every Americans' share" of the massive debt that we had nothing to do with. Most of us support ourselves and our families.... And want nothing to do with the government already, much less having a "share" in their massive spending habits when we ourselves understand how to balance a 'budget'. Apparently 'budget' is not a concept that this government understands.

Simply put, you can only spend the amount of money that you bring in. Not more.

Who in the world told the government to start spending way above and beyond what they bring in?

Amazingly stupid. And it's OUR debt. Beautiful.

that video puts a lot of things in perspective for me.
Sad thing is most Americans have NO idea what so ever.
Thank you for sharing this. S&F

reply to post by LostNemesis

Who in the world told the government to start spending way above and beyond what they bring in? Amazingly stupid. And it's OUR debt. Beautiful.

What bother's me even more is that people are supporting more spending. We should take every damn penny that every politician who voted for any type of increased and wasteful spending before a single cent is taken from the average worker.

They should be broke..no benefits..no insurance...no retirement...NOTHING!!!!!!! They should be living on the damn streets and suffer along with the people they helped put there!! They should be hitchhiking their corrupt asses to work and back.

That was an amazing presentation ..

No place to put questions .. straight forward picture of real america.

People still day dream of their yr end vacation plans ..Huh ...

Just so you know they are playing it again right now. Interesting about the discussion is that there is no mention of completely eliminating these programs like medicaid, social security etc. I think if Americans can realize that there are no free lunches and reestablish what the role of the federal government ought to be, they will have unrestrained prosperity.

You won't ever hear them talk about eliminating social security or medicare because it's one of their primary methods to convert "real, physical" money into imaginary funds. As it is removed from your paycheck automatically, it gaurantees them that at the very least, 10-15 percent of every dollar earned in this nation can be assured to never actually be demanded in the real world sense.

A lot of people do not like the idea of suffering the consequences of the actions and ills of others. There is nothing wrong with feeling that and my expectation is for us to feel frustration regarding that fact.

However, shared experiences are part of what it means to be a nation, one called the United States of America. There seems to be a fantasy amongst a lot of Americans in which we live in a dream world where America is a free market society. It is not a free market society and is quite impossible for it to be one. Therefore, like it or not, being a nation means that we will have to share and suffer as a whole, because that is what it means to be a nation.

Alls I have to say is this Burd Im glad you finally woke up. I remember when you first came on ATS you were a huffing and puffing neo con but you now see the big picture. I just wish everyone would wake up. If everyone fully understood what was going on in our nation right now there would be more people protesting. We had a protest down here in Miami at the fed during the End the FED rally and you know how many showed? 6 people. It was pathetic. I almost think we as a nation deserve everything we get because we were all to lazy and to dumb to do our own research and not listen to what the MSM had to spout.

A lady asked Ben Franklin as he left the constitutional convention "What have you given us?" to which Franklin responded "I have given you a Republic if you can keep it." Look at the bailouts and almost everyone who passed the bailout for the banks got re elected. This is why our country is in shambles. Ron Paul says it the best when he says its a philosophical problem. The Dems think you can raise taxes and keep big spending which does not pay our debt. The Republicans are worse they think u can have big government and low taxes. We are spending trillions running an over seas empire. It has to come to an end. We cant afford it. Try telling Washington and 90% of the people that though. When people go to use their dollars and find them worthless we will see what happens then.

I think CNN airing this documentary speaks volumes about how reality has slapped the U.S. in the face and changed perceptions in just a few months. Same thing about the replies to this thread, because not long ago, ATS could care less:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I think it's great CNN is airing it. It's freaking stark. They need to air over and over again. Everyone needs to see it.

I watched some of it the first run through and was surprised as well; It certainly seemed like conditioning of some sort. The "share" thing is hopefully, hopefully, an attempt to put it in perspective and not an allusion to anything else. But the trends point in the opposite direction so, errr...

Dead on about medicare and SS also. It seemed to me that the CNN talking heads feel cradle to grave care is a gov't responsibility and that they want the new generation to suck it up and pay for their retirement costs and worry about the next bubble when it comes. When they had to wrap it up and offer solutions the talking heads deviated from the advice the economists gave throughout and basically said "fix it now for us today".

reply to post by burdman30ott6

Star and Flag for you! Thank you for bringing this video to my attention.

I sure am glad I decided to move to Canada last summer!!

Originally posted by tjeffersonsghost
Alls I have to say is this Burd Im glad you finally woke up. I remember when you first came on ATS you were a huffing and puffing neo con but you now see the big picture.

Never a neo-con, if I can correct that now. I've said since day one that GW Bush & his neo-con movement was far closer to a liberal than anything else. If anything, I've recently woken up to the fact that there really isn't anyone left in the upper shell of the GOP who represents me or my beliefs. My former party was hijacked and it was done in such a way that most of us who supported the party never realized what was happening until it was too late.

Amazing as it may seem, it wasn't even this manufactured financial disaster that made me realize that. The simple fact is, I started to look into the key issues that they used to steal the party, abortion, the second ammendment, and protection of America's identity & the American way. In 8 years I have seen absolutely NOTHING done by Bush & friends to even inconvenience abortion, NOTHING to protect or reaffirm our second ammendment (aside from an essentially half-assed supreme court ruling earlier this year, and a complicit embracing of amnesty for scores of illegal immigrants alongside a demonization of national protectionism where trade is concerned. Those 3 issues are what made me "wake up." This economic implosion has occured since that alarm clock went off.

The thing that cracks me up is that the best description for my current political leanings uses a term that was (very carefully orchestrated by the PTB?) taught to be associated with sepretists and neo-Nazi dissidents when I was going through school. I would call myself a conservative nationalist right now. Seems just a little too convenient how the term "nationalist" was first applied to skinheads in the 70's and 80's and hammered into the American lexicon to mean something very distastefull, hate-filled, and dangerous, and then over the past 16 years it has gradually managed to be openly used to describe those who are opposed to globalism and free trade at America's expense, isn't it?

All sorts of manipulative psychological mind tricks are going on at the top, in both Congress and by Bush.

If they didn’t do the bailouts… what would have happened? What sort of financial meltdown would have occurred?

So, the billions in fake money was generated to soften the meltdown… so that we American’s don’t have to experience the immediate disaster… the disaster instead will just be spread out over a decade or so. We’ll pay for it over the next decade.

They’ve manipulated energy price changes… manipulate the public into thinking that there is an electrical energy plant shortage so the prices can be raised, manipulate gas prices in prior years, so that we get use to moderately higher gas prices and somehow “feel lucky”. They brought down two world trade centers with demolition charges and a rocket hitting the pentagon, and then manipulated a war when there was no weapons of mass destruction, and the public bought it hook, line, and sinker.

The financial problems have “manipulation” written all over it. A plan they want us to swallow will soon be coming, I’m sure.