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In Debt We Trust
America Before the Bubble Bursts
Transcript
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
DANNY SCHECHTER: A church in Norfolk, Virginia holds debt revivals.
Individuals with large debts are selected and then donations from parishioners
pay off those debts. The church members then destroy their credit cards.
BISHOP RUSSELL: It’s kind of hard to serve the master and MasterCard, and so
we’ve chosen to get rid of those cards to line our lives up with the Bible. Our
debt liquidation program actually takes our members, pays off all of their debts
except for their house and their cars.
DANNY SCHECHTER: What you’re saying is in a way very unfashionable in a
society that preaches the gospel of shopping. (Bishops Russell laughs) Okay, the
gospel of buying things.
BISHOP RUSSELL: Exactly. We are desperately hurting because we have
established a level of success that says the more credit cards you have, the more
you work. When, really, that’s not true. Our society has been really set up to
keep us struggling and not give us relief. I believe that there is going to be
economic fall out and I’m telling my church, be prepared.
DANNNY SCHECHTER: What goes up...
BISHOP RUSSELL: Has to come down.
SONG: Sung to the tune of the American National Anthem: “To Chase and to
Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Sally Mae. To MasterCard and Citibank and also B of A.
American Express and Visa, Morgan Stanley too. In debt we trust so pay we
must, we owe it all to you.
DANNY SCHECHTER: I pledge allegiance to the card of the United States of
credit. One nation under debt, with bankruptcies, late fees, and high interest for
all. Credit. You can’t live without it and many of us can’t live with it. In fact right
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now, the United States of America and its people are kept alive by all the money
we borrow. It’s been called the democratization of credit, but for many it leads to
the democratization of dependency. Just look at all the ads on TV selling us
more ways to take out loans. Behind our formal institutions and more powerful
than our politicians is a hidden financial complex, driving what the country’s
leading academic expert on the issue, Robert Manning, dubs our “credit card
nation”.
ROBERT MANNING: We’re seeing people who are dependent on credit. We’re
seeing them trying to struggle and make their minimum payments. Where their
ability to be able to pursue the American dream is how much credit the bank is
going to offer them.
DANNY SCHECHTER: Hey, it’s only money – other people’s money, or what we
call O.P.M. We’re all living beyond our means, we’re all living on credit, we’re all
living with debt, and it’s growing every single day. The national savings rate is
now zero. Americans spend more than we earn, it’s never been like that before.
And I have to deal with it also. I have mortgages, I have credit cards, I have all
other kinds of loans. Meanwhile, my savings account is shrinking away. I started
to make this film about other peoples’ problems and I realized it was about me,
too. I’m facing a credit squeeze that is as personal as it is political. The
question: can we even live without credit cards?
DANNY SCHECHTER: Let’s spend a few minutes with a certain individual; we’ll
call Mr. Money. The idea of credit used to be so simple.
MR. MONEY [video clip]: Hello, I’m Mr. Money. People can’t seem to get along
without me as cash or credit. What does credit mean to you?
MAN [video clip]: Gosh, I don’t know. Buy now and pay later, I guess.
MR. MONEY [video clip]: Not bad, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
CHAPTER 2: THE CREDIT CARD CRUSADER
ROBERT MANNING: Today’s our first day of freshman orientation. Over two
thousand freshmen from all over the country, in fact all over the world, are here.
Some have a little bit more familiarity with managing their own personal finances
than others. I started off here with an antique savings bank. We used to train
children to enjoy savings; today we’re training them to enjoy how to spend.
DENNIS DEVAREAUX: We’re in the fight to save people’s lives. People are
getting into debt, I mean, everyday. That’s just way beyond what they can
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much. Here’s a platinum card, Capitol One, let’s make it into two. What do you
think? This has been going on long enough.
LORRIANE BRACCO: Mistakes, we all make mistakes. We’re only human.
The second chance comes when the judge turns around and says, “Ms. Bracco,
you have used this system in the right way. Congratulations, I hope for you a
brighter future.”
STEVE BARNETT: It is very clear that hope for the future is help at the state
level, with state legislatures and state attorney generals. And non-profit and
community groups are organizing and entering together with consumer
organizations and demanding a fair and more equitable society. Where the cost
of credit is based on what the true cost really is.
SARAH LUDWIG: In all the problems that we’re seeing are just ripe for a really
large organizing effort and that it cries out for people to band together, because
this is effecting so many of us. And it just needs to be identified as an issue that
many of us can rally around. It’s an economic justice issue, it’s a civil rights
issue, and it’s a question of just basic fundamental fairness.
STUDENT: It’s really frustrating to see people’s lives being destroyed because
these guys are seeking the buck. They’re just after the chase in revenue, the
chase in profit. It’s net income to them. But to us, it’s people’s lives that are at
stake. And so that’s the fight that we’re in here.
ROY BARNES: I think that this issue can be a catalyst of bringing folks together
behind a single idea. And that is that these abuses have to be changed, and they
have to be stopped.
DANNY SCHECHTER: Back in the south, like in Norfolk Virginia, where the civil
rights movement is remembered, a new cry for liberation is being heard.
BISHOP RUSSELL: I see this as a movement towards liberation. And that’s all
the civil rights were about, liberating people.
NINA ADAMS: What he’s teaching us is being free from the enemy, which is
debt.
DANNY SCHECHTER: We have a president who says he believes in faith-
based solutions.
BISHOP RUSSELL: Yeah, I heard that.
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DANNY SCHECHTER: Now you have one, but they’re not listening in
Washington, are they?
BISHOP RUSSELL: No, no, no. They aren’t, they aren’t. And so it has to start
on this local level. And people like you, and other people who are concerned
about our problem, keep voicing it. Then the people, I believe, will catch on.
TRACY BERRY: Pay cash. Get rid of your credit cards. Cut ‘em up.
DANNY SCHECHTER: Do people think you were nuts?
TRACY BERRY: Sure they did, but look whose laughing now.
DANNY SCHECHTER: Your family?
TRACY BERRY: [Laughing] I’m out of debt.
DANNY SCHECHTER: In the end, it will take a coming together of all segments
of the American people – poor and middle class, white and black, left and right –
to press the politicians and the financial institutions deliberation from debt before
the bubble bursts.
ROY BARNES: In debt we trust, you better not trust long.
CHURCH MEMBERS [singing]: Let’s stomp that devil out, stomp that devil out,
stomp that devil out, stomp that devil out, stomp that devil out. To the left, to
right, to the front, hold your hands up, scream, let’s stomp that devil out...
GOVERNMENT SPEAKER: The U.S. is in the red big time. It’s scary. The run-
up in debt has economists, Wall Street analysts, academics, and Congress
kneeling at a state of nervous breakdown. In economic terms, we have never
experienced the impact in danger of such a debt load before. No markers, no
reference point, it’s terra incognito.
WOMAN [video clip]: Oh, gee, our time’s up already, Mr. Money.
MR. MONEY [video clip]: To benefit from the many credit services throughout
the country, everyone should understand the use of wise credit.
[End]