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In Debt we Trust
In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation.
'In Debt We Trust' is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media's role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex."
While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands. And with frightening consequences.
Hear Stories About the Film
Danny Schechter, Director, In Debt We Trust
"'In Debt We Trust' started out to be a film about what I thought were other people's problems. I came to realize how deeply they affect me as well. The experience of making this film has led me to understand how many ways policies and practices are tied to a growing national debt burden and have an impact on my personal finances."
Danny Schechter
"What's been called the "democratization of credit" has led to the democratization of dependency. It has created an unsustainable society, trapping millions in a financial hole they can't escape from and often do not understand."
What the Critics Say...
Learn more about the film.
- Official In Debt We Trust movie site
- Reviews
- Buy the DVD:
- American Movie
- Stop The Squeeze Campaign
- Danny Schechter's Debt Blog
- Globalvision
- Media Channel (Danny Schechter the News Dissector)
"I can still hear him hollering and coaching.."
-- William Haley (L) and his brother Glen remember their father, Joseph Howard Haley, founder of Jackie Robinson West Little League in Chicago. More
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Cinematical
HBO Documentary Films
Reel Works
International Documentary Association
StoryCorps
Media that Matters Film Festival
Independent Lens
Docs that Inspire
Doc it Out
Indiewire







BuzzFlash.com
"Fascinating and absorbing"
EURweb
"In Debt We Trust is an educational expose' which ought to be watched by anyone thinking about signing up for their first piece of plastic "
Orlando Weekly
"Have we got the movie for you. 'In Debt We Trust' is a sort of economics lesson meets Supersize Me.... ...the facts Schechter sprinkles throughout are mind-boggling...Come to think of it, Schechter has created about as sexy a film as possible on the topic of consumer debt."
Mike Killian
"[In Debt We Trust] should be viewed by every single American"
Erica Freudenberger, WoodStock Times, July 27, 2006
"Schechter's film is a compelling chronicle of how we got in over our heads... it should be required viewing for all high school and college students..."
CNN MONEY, August 4, 2006
" 'In Debt We Trust' takes a hard look at debt casualties..."
InvestmentNews.Com, August 7, 2006
"Mr. Schechter is going after the financial services industry with guns blazing"