Free Documentary "In Debt we Trust"

Long gone are the days when Americans prided themselves—both as individuals and as a society—on remaining free from debt. Since World War II, in fact, easy credit has gone a long way toward fashioning the Consumer Society.

In Debt We Trust shows how the mall replaced the factory as America's dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress, driving us into what a major bank economist calls " modern serfdom." Today Americans and their government owe trillions in consumer and national debt, most of it to big banks and to China. A former prosecutor reveals that many of these loans are worse than mafia loan-sharking practices. An ex-credit card executive explains how ad campaigns are deliberately deceptive and misleading. And one top government official compares the USA today to Rome before its fall.

Filmmaker and journalist Danny Schechter (WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception) investigates Americans' ongoing love affair with credit cards and the staggering level of personal debt they encourage, devoting special attention to the connections between Congress and the credit card industry. The last film in this year's Documentary Film Series, this is also one of the broadest in its appeal. As many of us know painfully well, credit card companies have used the current recession to increase their various fees.

Discussion will be led by Carol Brouillet, founder of the International Media Project and Community Currency.