October 24, 2008

At the moment this sentence was written, the U.S. national debt stood at $10,468,744,605,507.55. That's more than 10 trillion dollars, and every day that total grows by another $3.76 billion. Those are big numbers. So big, in fact, they're entirely abstract -- and that's the biggest problem in our increasingly abstract economic landscape: We've lost our bearings. Debt might as well be the abominable snowman -- a mythical creature people love to dramatize and exploit in the hopes of generating fear, but a creature whose devastating power remains purely hypothetical.

Patrick Creadon's new documentary goes a long way toward changing that perception. A broad-strokes history of the U.S. banking system that also offers a detailed look at recent policy decisions that left the U.S. Federal Reserve holding the bag on billions in bad debt, I. O. U. S. A. was created before the much-ballyhooed Wall Street "bailout."Aimed as a warning call to all citizens and asset holders, the film was designed to raise awareness about a looming "credit crisis" back in the days of soaring share price giddiness.