AliprandoJoannaAnnotation13

Maxed Out, James Scurlock, 2006 Maxed Out is an excellent documentary about our nation and credit. We are a nation built upon and reliant on credit cards and debt. Our nation is trillions of dollars in debt while American citizens each year collectively use 3 trillion dollars on credit cards. How have we gotten ourselves in so deep? Well modeling ourselves off the government and politicians it may seem to the everyday consumers as though everyone is in debt, it is ok to purchase something even though you don't have the money for it ---thats why we have credit cards. Each year credit card companies offer the already high indebted consumers of our nation over 4 billion offers for credit cards per year. Credit marketing is so lucrative with offers in the mail everyday showing limited time interest rates, for preferred customers, those suffering to make ends meet are lured in from the prospect of having a little extra cash that month for rent, or car payments. We also discover it is not coincidental the same people suffering from excessive (10-15 cards) are those least likely to ever be able to pay it back. Credit Card companies specifically target those people because that is where they make their money. Credit card fees are over 160% where if a debtor had $9,205 in card debt they owe $1,300 each year in interest payments alone. 3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? Once again, legal/political, organization, and media/information seem to be the sectors most responsible for this sustainability issue. I harp on the repetitive nature because the patterns in nearly all the film viewed is the interconnectivity of these three sectors. What appear to the everyday citizen as three separate entities, we understand all invest in one another and exploit one another for their own purposes. MBNA is a large credit card distributor for America and also happened to be George W. Bush's top campaign supporter. Bankruptcy is the only route a consumer can go to end the collection calls and gain some kind of a second chance, but for credit card companies it means they can no longer make money off of that consumer. As you may of guessed, credit card companies don't like bankruptcy so G.W.B. was sure to sign a bill making it harder for individuals to file for it (the bill was written by MBNA). Following the signing ceremony G.W.B. spoke how American citizens of whom the bankruptcy laws were not intended for, are abusing the law and making credit less affordable and less accessible for everybody else--"for those in need, this hurts lower income families." The same connections are drawn through the media where we see scenes of talk show hosts advocating certain types of credit to look into.
 * 1. Title, director and release year?**
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?

We can also understand the behavioral and cultural aspects of credit card debt. Culturally, we are becoming a more expensive society. Today's family has less money for food, insurance, health care, or family activities than a family did from the 1970s. The "basics" are getting much more expensive and what both our culture and our behaviors define as basic needs has changed. Now, a basic need is two cars per family, since both parents work, and to in order to work in this country one needs a car. This means additional expenses and ultimately money from your paycheck absorbed by working costs. Can I afford to work? Many get trapped in credit card debt just to take out the money needed so they wouldn't loose their job, or wouldn't loose their home.

4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? PeopleFirst Recoveries is a debt collection company located in a bear office space where 6-7 debt callers sit in their cubicles and make collection calls. The dynamic of this office was absolutely insane. Two manager level men were just about the sleaziest people I've ever seen. Freely making the most ignorant comments about their beliefs of why people are in debt and why they more or less deserve the torture PeopleFirst subjects them to. Callers mention tactics like threatening them if they don't pay. We'll inform the newspaper, or we'll call your neighbors and let them know your're in debt. One caller says she always threatens by saying she'll call relatives, commenting it works so well because it's such an embarrassment for people. In one scene the two managers describe how it feels to work at PeopleFirst. "It feels like throwing a touchdown pass." They comment how their job has the thrill of a sports game, and the paycheck allows them to purchase cars, houses, and presents for their family. They use another analogy that their job allows them to feel the excitement of a pirate's life. They envision their job as putting people on the plank, getting them out there and then right before they decide to jump, make them agree to your terms and let them back on the ship. This pirate analogy scene immediately follows one where we discover the missing mother of a family had driven herself into the river from credit card debt. Apparently this mother was never brought back onto the ship. It just amazes me how collection callers and credit businesses just don't understand the useless and hopeless feeling they divest onto people.

The film follows an investigative journalist who goes to people's homes all around the nation to understand their credit card debt stories. One right after another we hear the stories of families trapped in mounds of credit card debt all to either keep the house, or pay for food. One family was a 60 something single mother and her 44 year old mentally retarded son. Her son had signed a card contract with the handwriting of a kindergarten student of which the creditor accepted as an adult signing a credit card contract. After thousands in credit card debt, her son still receives letter each day commenting him as a "preferred and highly valued customer" offering him preferred rates and benefits. 5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?** The film begins with a real estate agent discussing the new qualifications her home buyers are looking for. 2 elevators, 2 laundry rooms, excessive space, fenced in yard with security guard. While I though this did add to the cultural/behavioral aspects of the crisis, I thought it a little irrelevant to the rest of the film. The main concept I gathered about credit card debt is it is not so much about people committing crimes of excessive shopping and materialist needs but rather lower middle class to lower class citizens corrupted by the persuasion of the credit card agencies. These people aren't taking out credit card loans to buy a second elevator, they are taking out credit card loans for the extra cash to repair their car to get to work, or to pay off a house payment. While I'm sure there is a whole other credit crisis in the upper middle to higher class citizens to purchase themselves into a higher class, it was not the central focus of the film and in my opinion a much less interesting side of the crisis. Another very compelling segment of the film addressed credit card companies and their marketing towards college students. We meet two mothers whose children, in their first year of college became trapped in credit card debt. One mother said she noticed on college visiting day there were many credit card companies soliciting out to the students, but she said she wasn't concerned figuring that her son's 18 and doesn't have a job--who's going to give him a credit card. Turns out college students can easily obtain credit cards, with her son owning 12 different cards and $12,000 dollars in debt. From the pressure, both these parent's children hung themselves. This story makes me want to make connections in two areas. One, with so many in debt how much of our suicide incidences have something to do with credit debt? Most of the families in the film experienced suicide from credit card debt, many even admitted they considered it themselves for a long time. Those in debt made comments like "I just feel like disappearing" or "my existence needs to cease." Credit card debt is a viscous and never ending cycle where you need the money, loaners and bankers tell you this is the best way to do it, then they ensure for the rest of your life you will get collection calls for the money you could only pay back on more credit. It is legal heroin. It is a legal drug system. Highly addictive and extremely deadly. These people are pushed by white collar drug dealers into the temporary euphoric feeling of fake money, only to come down completely lost and in a much worse situation than they began in. Two, this story brought up an interesting connection i made with our HSBC branch located just right across the way from our highly overpriced student bookstore. 7. What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems? The film is definitely best addressed towards the college student and up audience. I say this may be the best audience because I believe this film will have the best impact on college level students. We are soon to enter the workforce and soon have a little extra spending money than we might be used to, and consequently subject to making more lucrative purchases. As the viewer learned, it is very easy to fall into the traps credit card companies make and i think this film is a good lesson for all college students about to manage their own finances. 8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film? Not many points of intervention are suggested from the film. Janne and Trish, the two mothers of the college students work together as activists for a bill protecting college students from credit card companies. Another small segment was on the NYC national debt clock but very little was presented on that as well. 9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value? Perhaps a little more about how society is shifting or reacting to the credit card crisis. Maybe things aren't yet starting to change and that's why the film didn't mention any rays of hope for social, legal, political reform. **
 * 6. What additional information does this film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc.?