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In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts - Full Movie

God thank you for your deliverance that shall take place on tonight 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 it's kind of hard to serve the master and Master Card and so we've
chosen to get rid of those cards to line our lives up with with the Bible our
debt liquidation program actually takes our members pays off all of their debts
except for their house and their cars
what you're saying is in a way very unfashionable in a society that preaches
the gospel of shopping okay the gospel of buying saying 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 in essence that's not true our society has been
really set up to keep us struggling and not give us relief I believe that
there's going to be economic fallout and I'm telling my church be prepared what goes up to Chase
[Music]
[Applause] Bank
[Music]
we trust so we must we
[Music] 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 she can't
live without it and many of us can't live with it in fact right 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 with
the country's leading academic expert on the issue robert manning dubs our credit-card nation we're seeing people
who are dependent on credit we're seeing them trying to struggle and make their minimum payments with their ability to
pursue the American Dream is how much credit the bank is gonna offer them hey it's only money
other people's money or what we call OPM 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
kinds of other loans meanwhile my savings account is shrinking away I started to make this film about other
people's problems and I realize 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 let's spend a few minutes with a certain individual will call mr.
money the idea of credit used to be so simple
hello I'm mr. money people can't seem to
get along without me as cash or credit what does credit mean to you gosh I
don't know buy now and pay later I guess not bad but there's a lot more to it
than that [Music]
today's our first day of freshman orientation over 2,000 freshmen from all over the country in fact all over the
world are here some have a little bit more familiarity of managing their own personal finances than others and I
start 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 we're in the fight to
save people's lives people are getting into debt I mean every day that's this way I'm beyond what they can handle I mean you meet
someone that's 1819 years old and they're telling you how they're you know fifteen twenty thousand dollars in credit card debt no one ever said them
down and explained you know what it was like to try to get a job if your credit score was really messed up I get the
feeling a lot of times working with dr. Manning that we're David and the credit card companies are Goliath they have the
mass media campaigns behind them that the lobbyists in in Washington DC and all we have is the truth in Manning's
lecture the next day packs them in a sign of widespread alarm about so many kids leaving college with an average of
$20,000 of debt this issue well many of you probably have forgotten that the
American Revolution was largely driven by the great American planners that were
heavily in debt to European banks and they had very onerous terms and they
recognized that they could not financially prosper under such outrageous financial demands so part of
the American Revolution was to break enslavement from financial debt we just
constantly are getting bombarded from the credit card companies and it's like don't send I don't want it my daughter
got one the other day five thousand dollars and she's never had anything so would you
for or against getting a credit card I think every student should get a credit card but if their parents will not
cosign and they don't have an independent source of income it should be capped at $500 and only if the
student isn't delinquent in payments then it would be raised $500 a year so graduation to a limit of $2,500 one
former student Andrea Rodriguez wishes she had listened I remember the first time when I went to a mall with a friend
of mine and there was a whole bunch of people outside just advertising credit
cards for college students so I applied for one and of course I didn't put the
right income because I wanted a credit card and a couple of weeks later I received a credit card for a limit of
$10,000 so I went out and I spent and I spend and I spent at that time I was not
making any kind of money soon she was in way over her head I got a lot of bills
over 5 grand for one credit card over old you know $7000 no which was not the
ten thousand dollar credit card that was another credit card so I was like I can't pay this I was just going crazy so
I decided my cousin actually is in with finance and I'm I decided just go bankrupt that's when he won gee mister
money do girls have to learn all this about credit - well Judy women do most of the shopping when they get married
and very often spend most of the family income and now let's see just how a shopping
can be fun real fun this is a toy that's designed for children three years and up
the Barbie registered toy and it actually gives you the exact sound of an
acceptance of using a credit card when it processes it at the cash register there's also Malibu Barbie who comes
with her own gold MasterCard and their shopping girl Barbie where she has her own stores pick and choose with her
credit card while Manning was warning parents and students of the dangers of
getting suckered local banks were setting up tables to sign up new customers right outside his lecture room
students we usually give a line of somewhere between three and five hundred dollars what's the interest rate or how
much does it cost manning knows he's fighting an uphill
battle against the culture that thrives on consumption young people today that
seek credit as a social entitlement have no understanding of what it's going to entail to repay those loans back once
they're used to living on borrowed money then the bank's realized that they'll be following that pattern possibly for the
rest of their lives
more and more sectors of the American economy recognized that their financial
success is based on the success of the credit card industry this is wilmington delaware there's a
bank on every corner behind me the headquarters of MBNA it's a state known
for its favorable business climate for its low taxes and for its politicians who will do the bidding of the credit
card companies MBNA is now owned by the Bank of America fewer and fewer banks
some say ten in all dominate 92% of the industry supplying get this 1.5 billion
cards worldwide held by a hundred and fifty eight million card holders that averages to ten cards per person the
bank's persuaded Congress to deregulate leading to consolidation and higher prices pro-business Court decisions
allowed them to base operations and low tax states like South Dakota and Delaware and end consumer protections
against usury everything here is very clearly thought-out and premeditated three big companies maintain vast data
bases on every American they have more data than the CIA says computer expert
Daniel gross the credit card system as a whole is a huge threat to our freedom
but the really great threat isn't so much these corporations as our nonchalance and in the face of the power
they have over us its our indifference our negligence our ignorance that gives them their power and that makes them
dangerous to us we hear a lot about identity fraud and credit card scams
against individuals but not about fines and lawsuits against unethical practices
by credit card companies including deceptive advertising and improper fees
these credit bureau practices were riddled with abuses - they've now simplified their products in the way
they determine credit scores credit scores and number is calculated differently by each credit
reporting agency using a proprietary formula proprietary is another word for
secret which is how much of the industry operates it decides on your creditworthiness and can often
unilaterally change the agreement it has with you even after you've signed it I don't bother reading most of the things
I sign when I get them for my credit card company you're a lawyer that most people have difficulty understanding the
amount of paper that your credit card company assaults you with multiple pages
the pages are at least 15 and number the print is very small and again this is an
example of drafting by a risk minimizing lawyer
[Music]
in 2005 the top 10 credit card companies spent over 2 billion dollars on
advertising and marketing I asked Steve Barnett who worked on advertising for
city banks credit card division about the way the company's market credit cards look at the MasterCard ads first
you'll see a MasterCard ad that shows a family going to a baseball game and
paying for different for the hotdogs and the tickets in the and you know all this cost a certain amount of money and you
can do with MasterCard okay what is the real meaning of the evening it's the
family together and it is priceless now think about that advertisement this is
an advertisement urging spending and the trick in the advertisement which is oh
so clever is to say the point of this all is this priceless that's really not concerned about money it's concern about
you as a intact wonderful caring family you know you as an intact wonderful
caring family can go to some park and play softball with the kids too you don't spend you know $180 zero bowling
bankruptcy lawyer Charles John chica people act on those commercials those commercials have real influence they are
they are done scientifically to get into your unconscious mind it's a priceless campaign which you know you've seen many
many of the MasterCard ads is free because what they're saying is this
credit card this this is not a way to get you in debt this is not a way to to cause you to overspend this is a way to
reinforce your values your deepest beliefs their identity is based on their
credit cards even the color of the plastic that they use now identify them within a rank order of the credit card
nation gold silver platinum titanium everybody's identity now is what their
transaction whether it goes through whether it's been accepted whether it's been rejected the credit card issuer says wow that's one
I can issue a platinum card well then the platinum card becomes too widespread
I can issue a black card the black card is the extraordinary super elite card of
American Express for people who charge approximately 300 thousand dollars a year
need a pricey watch or an exclusive hotel American Express even publishes
this glossy magazine just for wealthy card holders it's chock full of high-priced luxury products the more
fancy and elite the credit card is the more money is made from from from that credit card after years of getting
unwanted unsolicited credit card solicitations in my mailbox at home I
come to the office and what happens I'm being spammed to death with more solicitations
in my inbox on email less than perfect credit we'll match you with the right lender in unsecured Gold MasterCard
credit card it just doesn't stop and where are the commercials say don't use
credit cards if you use credit card pay it off in 30 days or else you'll pay outlandish interest where are those
commercials they don't exist something like this [Music]
making priceless commercials tens of millions making a film about credit card
abuses tens of thousands getting hooked on credit cards overpriced
creating awareness of the problem priceless there are some things money
can't buy for everything else there's twenty nine percent interest today there
are more choices more complexity leb de
founded Lending Tree calm a big internet based lender Doug is right consumers are
confused but the companies thrive on that confusion - this is an incredibly
complex world living in very very complex products and obviously the stakes are extremely high I think it's
important that consumers stay very informed in that process and we as Lending Tree as well as the industry in
general I think can do a very good job in helping to educate and helping to inform and making sure that consumers
get the right get the right answers would the banks say the same
thing about mortgages do they say we'll give anybody a mortgage no they have pretty strict restrictions and criteria
by which they determine a mortgage that's any say any institution that lends you money is obligated to to
define the conditions under which they're lending you money which are commensurate with your ability their
responsibilities don't they have a responsibility who's today other thanks [Music]
[Music] we're doomed to shop till we drop to 2/3
of our economy is based on consumption which leads to a rather petrifying
paradox if we cut back on consumption which obviously is good for the
environment is good for a number of things the US economy collapses in a sense we've built an economy that needs
rampant consumerism as fuel too just to
keep the engine going it's always Christmastime or Visa MasterCard gets
presents every day they're happy as can be when we discover neat artery the
finance stars that never goes away as of Christmas 2005 the national debt
stood at 8 trillion 179 billion 165 million two hundred sixty seven thousand
six hundred and twenty six dollars and 42 cents break that down and each American share comes to twenty seven
thousand four hundred and thirty nine dollars and forty eight cents and that's per person
this debt increases on average two point eight three billion dollars per day as
the national debt threatens to rise to ten trillion a new national debt clock is being built I know nothing about it
I know absolutely nothing except for it's just making my family even more for dead is a symptom of much larger
economic and structural issues facing households one we've seen a decline in
incomes or a stagnation of incomes particularly in the lower income household range and also for middle
income households at the same time costs have really skyrocketed health care
housing costs the cost of sending a kid to college and finally we've got to look
at public policy and what has happened and and what we see is a real retrenchment in terms of providing a
safety net for households
how did it happen how did we go from being a nation that made things to a nation that buys things how and why has
the economy become reorganized around the means of consumption instead of the means of production
when did the mall replace the factory as America's economic engine people have
difficulty realizing that the new economic conflict in our society is between creditors and debtors there's
still a tendency of many left wingers to think in terms of the class war and the
war is between employers and employees but the real economic war where all the money is being made is between creditors
and debtors because that's a free lunch credit and debt are transforming our industrial economy into one based on
financial services and service providers as the gap between the haves and the
have-nots deepens having property is often considered the only way to build wealth but a 2006 HSBC report found that
the biggest rise in housing values is taking place in what they call a bubble zone with housing overvalued by as much
as 40% creating an illusion of trillions of dollars of inflated wealth yet for
many Americans reality is now spelled Realty mr. money my father's been making
payments on our home for years that's called mortgage credit and sometimes the payments may run for as long as 25 years
years ago when suburban families paid off their loans they had mortgage burning parties remember Archie Bunker's
[Applause] well here it is here it is the Buncombe
oh they'll take a rest of Independence for us from now on we own a whole joist
today most families will never pay off their mortgages because of constant refinancing Waterloo
remember when we called our homes our castles that's a metaphor that goes back to the days of feudalism when the Lord's
owned the land and the serfs did the work and a historian of debt says that what went around then is coming back now
the price of getting a home in America is to enter into a lifetime of debt servitude in the 1920s one of the things
that brought about the depression among others was this exuberance this foolishness and the investment of
speculative stocks listen I think their next great economic crisis in this nation is going to be brought about by
the debt load and the high rates of interest that are charged from it it is shocking to me that intelligent people
educated people have not taken time to think about this we cannot sustain over
an extended period of time these high levels of debt particularly at high rates of interest because what will what
will happen is that whenever it comes to an end and there is an end to the amount
of credit in other words when it gets so leveraged it will create an economic crisis so deep that will threaten
assassination [Music]
we know that your life is hard so please put down your guard we'll send you a chip to give you a lift a shiny new
credit card don't break your minds are low you can use it wherever you go whenever your desk look through and give
us a happy [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] you may not know you know someone I mean
your your coworker may look all sad and you think it's her boyfriend it's really the fact that she owes $15,000 in credit
card debt another 20,000 in educational debt and it's getting calls all day and all night
and can't sleep but she does not share that with you more than 2 million Americans went bankrupt in 2005 among
them Joe suture a fellow film producer bankruptcy was kind of like a foreign
country I didn't want to visit sort of a judicial Baghdad I'm not particularly religious but Jesus was a very peaceful
man right he's you know not a violent guy the one time he was a little violent as he went into the temple in Citibank
Chase Bank and BNA were there changing money and he took their cables unused to room on the ground okay want to get
biblical all about this well let's get biblical about this they're making 54 percent net profit that is evil and
they're making off the poorest members of our society that is evil do you think in a worst-case scenario could I lose
the house after a 15-year marriage to kids I found myself in divorce hell legal briefs filed faster than speeding
bullets in the end I had little in the way of savings and less in the way of income but I did have credit cards I
used them to keep up with my bills and the office just kept coming low APR but
more muscle into your account balance transfers I needed to pay the mortgage child support home equity I was over my
head and I began missing payments soon the offers turned to threats in this
weird financial netherworld I was discovering all sorts of see me and slimy little profit niches the attorneys
the debt collectors the lingo and language were all coded under ambiguous phrases like skip tracing scrubbing one
company even advertised the profit potential of office by bankrupt individuals even if they were dead
let's return my car today concerning a personal business matter thank you five billion dollars five
billion dollars to the credit card companies that's what this bill is all about where do you think it comes from
people who have gone into bankruptcy who are those people they are the people that have the heart attacks they are the
men and women whose jobs have been outsourced they're the mothers the single moms who
aren't getting paid back an alimony and child care support those are the people that are being hurt Kennedy won people's
hearts but the credit card industry won the vote bankruptcy reform passed and
President Bush quickly signed it into law in six months it would take effect President Bush signed a sweeping
revision of bankruptcy rules today the new law makes it harder to erase debts by declaring personal bankruptcy at
today's ceremony the president said it will cut down on fraud opponents have said it helps creditors at the expense
of the poor Joe is still fighting to keep up his morale and also keep his
home which showed up on foreclosure calm he's not alone to declare bankruptcy is
a very difficult situation lorraine bracco who plays the therapist on The Sopranos TV show went through a similar
ordeal is very expensive the attorney fees are a fortune I blamed myself for
getting myself in this situation we think every actress or movie star or
every rich person has no problems and
we're just like everybody else if the bankruptcy laws become more difficult
you're gonna find that the banks and the financial lenders all of a sudden will
be saddled with assets houses you know whatever they they can recover that they really don't want and they're gonna have
a lot of trouble disposing of there has to be a reduction in the level of consumerism as people essentially go
under in various ways that triggers a vicious cycle of even more economic collapse now you have a
the perfect storm [Music]
the victims of Hurricane Katrina found their finances devastated along with
their homes and communities the so called bankruptcy reform bill passed just weeks earlier specifically ruled
out floods as grounds for bankruptcy when the levee is they are leaking and
the storm has hit you hard help is on the way my friend they send you a credit
card what I don't understand is why Congress has allowed this
[Music]
benefits our industry it keeps you on track for payers magazine top priority
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Music]
the halls of Congress quiet clean official here's where the people's
business supposedly gets done the largest contributors to political campaigns in America are the financial
institutions the second largest contributors are large real estate developers that means that if you're
running for office you have to get elected by promising to support policies that are supported by the real estate
sector and by the financial sector that lends to the real estate sector so the
politicians are pretty much bought and the credit card industry is the leading profit engine of the banking industry
generating pre-tax earnings of over thirty billion dollars annually some
members of Congress do worry about the debt problem they know we are living on borrowed money and borrowed time this is
a multi-billion dollar industry they are making more dollars on the excessive
fees and then they would at any time on the alleged goods that you are supposed to be buying this is of course a
calamity waiting for the Congress to wake up and provide some relief since
this bill was written mr. speaker Enron world calm Adelphia United Airlines LTV
steel Kmart Polaroid Global Crossing and filed bankruptcy and they did not have to use a means test does time has
expired
well you know when you spend upwards of 4 million dollars and I think that was a
low number by the credit card companies to get their bill if you will this was
one of the more well-funded legislative initiatives that has probably come
through the United States Congress it's much worse than even congresswoman Jackson Lee realizes this new book
reports that the banks spent 36 million lobbying on the bankruptcy bill credit card companies added another 13 million
accounting firms put in another 6 million and business associations added
almost a hundred million that's a hundred and fifty four million dollars in all just to get one bill passed
up against the industry's economic cloud and political access you have a handful
of consumer advocates like the Center for Responsible Lending Josh Nasar for
every time that I'm able to end to meet with a member of Congress you know most times that member of Congress has been
with tons of industry people already most people think most policies have decided inside the
Congress you know like you see on c-span but what really goes on up here in terms
of you know these issues we're discussing well the truth is that a lot of decisions that are made here by the
members of Congress and a lot of the conversations have children the lobbyists have with the members of Congress are made and there are tons of
fundraisers every night and this is where the lobbyists really gets one-on-one time with the members of
Congress and a lot of decisions are made a lot of deals with talking these buildings right here not when the
lobbyists come in oh what do they bring with them per individual per event so
they can make go to several events in one evening and several different
members so money buys access in a way at least opportunity to make your case
[Applause] citizen activists like members of ACORN
representing poor people also try to get their voices heard
[Applause]
now who are you up against you are up against powerful forces a big industry
big budgets big lobbyists they go to meetings guy was telling me goes to a meeting with guys giving out checks with
thousands of dollars when they have committee hearings they'll have one
panel for the banking industry and the brokers and so forth then they'll have
another panel for the consumers we'll fly someone in from Minnesota something a person who has been victimized by
predatory lending to tell their story I mean if this is heart wrenching but by then the bankers are gone and the
brokers are gone and members of Congress some of those have filtered out it might be after lunch they don't give a darn
really it's all about money if you can't
maintain a certain amount no big is gonna let you have a checking account so when you gotta cash your check cuz your
kids need to eat there's a check cashing place about a block up the street when the money's tight you don't have to wait
there's a 500 percent interest rate that you keep rolling along a payday loan and
if you can't afford the freezer you can rent their own you gotta make those payments but you can't miss one you can
buy it they will repossess them when your ice
cream is gonna make your Bower and when
you get a check and you don't have a bank to get the money immediately you can't wait to start like you get paid on
Friday as you're getting cash that's at attention and you go take care your business you're getting a check what am
I gonna do with this I don't go to the bank cause I don't have an account there
they give me the runaround about this day and the other gotta have $300 in the bank to just start an account in all of
this so I'll go to the check casting spot that's the scam that's how they catch people check cashing stores and
tax rebate joints are everywhere in poor neighborhoods traditional banks are not
we're in the center of bedford-stuyvesant Brooklyn which is one of the largest black communities in this
country you have signs all over the neighborhood that say no credit bad
credit no problem come to us need fast cash come to us Sarah Ludwig worked with
a group that sees the credit crisis at an issue of economic justice as in every aspect of American life it is the people
who are least able to afford it who are targeted the most she says if you look
at this map for example what you see for New York City is that this chain Rena center which is a rent-to-own store has
located all of its stores it predominantly low-income communities of color these stores are deliberately
concentrated in poor neighborhoods you want to buy a 19 inch TV you can get one
at a mall for a hundred and ninety five dollars renting to own it here will eventually cost you over 700 over 78
installments with an interest rate of two hundred and thirty-eight percent what happened about 20 years ago is that
bankers said they made a anthropological discovery a breakthrough they found out
that the poor are honest almost the only people who believe that they should repay their debts are the poor people
and in fact the less money you have the more you believe that the deaths should be paid what this means is that
even though the poorer you are the higher the interest rate you pay the poorer you are the greater the likelihood the bank has that you're
going to repay the debt it's not about race and and so forth anymore it's more of a class separation in this country
and the very very wealthy continue to thrive and survive the best of us are
just trying to scratch and make it Josh dinner and it's small team of legal aid lawyers is barely coping here in New
York City we have a foreclosure prevention hotline and we get calls from all over the city from the low and
moderate-income homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure particularly from predatory lending and we're just getting
day lose these days foreclosure rates are very high [Music]
welcome to Bushwick in Brooklyn an area the New York Times calls the hot new
neighborhood in a real estate story that does not describe locals suffering Rick
atcha Boreas community organization is fighting to help people stay in their homes one of the questions that we often
ask is well Rick how is it that a bank
would lend 600 or 800 thousand dollars in a property that's only worth three or
four hundred thousand dollars I mean how what are gonna do if the
mortgage borrower doesn't pay the mortgage and we explain to them the first lender is selling the debt and
being completely reimbursed so there's no risk for them they're selling these mortgages into the secondary market
through Wall Street so what they're doing is they're having these mortgages basically selling hundreds of millions
of dollars worth of these mortgages into the securitization trust I will
guarantee you that if you own a house or an apartment that the bank that issued
you your mortgage is not the bank that holds your mortgage today the severity of the problem of home mortgage lending
and a predatory way may be quantified in the following terms you are talking in
recent years of a problem that every year transfers hundreds of billions of
dollars hundreds a billion hundreds of billions of dollars you said billions
I said billions not Mane's from the pockets of the poor to people who are
far better position than their so-called victims poor neighborhoods are littered
with posters offering foreclosure counseling you'll see those signs all
over the neighborhood you know once they go into foreclosure it becomes a matter of public record and people get deluged by I mean it's sort
of a feeding frenzy where people are deluge with with phone calls with mailings with people coming to their
door or these self-styled foreclosure rescue specialists and the pitches is always we
can help you save your home what in fact happens is people lose their home that's what happened to the fayez family they
trusted one of these scammers who demanded their house deed when they took out a loan the family was soon
dispossessed and out on the street their ordeal was so shocking that it made the newspapers when the marshal came my
children was having lunch in a Wednesday the coldest day in January and said you
have 10 minutes to leave my children have suffered nightmares my son Daniel
would hide under the seat of the car when you will see a police officer you
know they still remember what they were having for lunch what they had in the microwave that was left there they could
not even pack their things here I am a hard-working mother of four at the time
not wanting to run welfare sure they will pay a rent for us and give us food
but that's not our ambition wanting to keep our house as an inheritance for our
children it's not something wrong and we weren't well educated as to how Swift
and conniving these people are that's what happened to Mary Paskowitz
she teared up as she told me her story in front of the home she grew up in in South Philadelphia she lost it to a
fraudulent home-improvement scam it was very hard I was my father in this house
it upsets me I've set some events they haven't been back around here for a while yeah it is my father died in this
house and he never wanted me to lose it I feel like I failed him too
the military including soldiers just back from Iraq are also being targeted
the New York Daily News reports more than a hundred thousand US troops have been saddled with long-term debt in
return for short-term cash from payday loan stores charging interest rates that
would make the mob blush poorly paid soldiers put up their paychecks as collateral to these high interest
short-term loans here in the Norfolk
region is the largest Naval Station in the world plus you have the largest naval amphibious base in the world and
three years ago there were three payday lenders in the area as of yesterday
there are now 26 I know some guys they
keep using and using it and using it and they don't know how to stop because it's
money right there in their hand right quick bytes the money's more accessible
in this area so everybody just almost attacks one specific area until it
dwindles and they just move to the next one counselors here at a Norfolk Navy base told us what they're confronting in
this office we have a completely anonymous survey it asks very specific
questions about have you used a payday lender and it goes on from there we had
a hundred and sixty four respondents recently and the first question was did
you have to renew your loan to take out another one to pay the first one back and out of that one sixty four a hundred
and eleven said yes they did have to do that the next question is is if so how
many times did you have to do that and they range from we only did it once
you know thirteen people only did it once to one person who had to roll over
that loan forty to sixty times
one person said I hopefully will never do a payday loan again one person said I
was living off payday loans one person said I had to feed my family I had no
choice one person said it took almost a year to get out from under one loan it
was a trap they are designed to force dependence in the future of our country
waves of destructive forces will continue to batter against our foundation when any force weakens the
interlocked blocks of our political and economic freedoms as good citizens we
must be quick to use the tools our Constitution gives us my tour of our
credit card nation was ending how depressing to find so many people suffering and to realize that I'm part
of the problem I'm back with my calculator my bills trying to make ends meet with billions at stake with both
political parties implicated it's like a turnstile that you get into but you never get out of what can break through
and create a sense of national outrage about credit scams and predatory
practices can this problem become a national issue in a country that seems
to believe in debt we trust
we'll have people come into our office look like this all the time they're going hey dude can you get me out
90% of marriages end on money problems conservatives like Nashville radio host
Dave Ramsey encouraged cutting up your credit card forever we're gonna have a
price ectomy that's right we're gonna
get rid of the titanium car right out of here baby Bank of America yeah I got an
American flag in my car that'll do me just fine thank you very much here's a platinum card Capital One let's make it into two what
do you think mistakes we all make
mistakes we're only human the second chance comes when the judge turns around
and says miss brocco you have used this system in the right way congratulations
I hope for you a brighter future it is
very clear that the hope for the future is help at the state level with state legislators and state attorney generals
and nonprofit and community groups that 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
all the problems that we're seeing are just ripe for a really large organizing
effort and that it really you know cries out for people to band together because this is affecting so many of us and it
just needs to be identified I think it's 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 it's really frustrating to see people's lives being destroyed because
these guys are seeking the lead of the buck they're just after the chase and revenue the chase and 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 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 back in the south like in Norfolk Virginia where the civil rights movement is remembered a new cry
for liberation is being heard towards
liberation and that's all the civil rights was about liberating people what
he's teaching us is being free from the enemy which is dead we have a president
who says he believes in faith-based solutions yeah I heard now you have one but
they're not listening Washington are they no no no they are they are and so it has to start on this local level and
and people like you and other people who are concerned about our problem keep voicing it than the people I believe
what will catch on [Applause]
pay cash get rid of your credit cards cut them up so people think you were not
sure they did your family's laughing now
[Applause] 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 to liberation from dead
before the bubble bursts and that we trust you better not trust long
[Applause]
[Music]
the US government is in the red big time it's scary but run up instead has
economist Wall Street analysts academics and Congress dealing 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 incognita
[Music]
Oh time's up already with too many to
benefit from the medic planet services available throughout the country every consumer should understand the wise use
of credit