Very worth while .Very informative , Has a great deal of information that more americans need to have in order that additional questions will be asked of our elected officials,in reguard to getting the national spending and budget in balance .

After seeing the film; this book was soon in my shopping cart. There too few books that do not preach, try to sway your vote, or lay blame on one particular person. It tells Americans what has happened to our economy, and what will continue happening if we don't do something about it. And yes, its scary. But guess what- so is the future at the spending rate we are going. Coming from a generation of indulgence and gross self- entitlement, the few bad reviews about this book are being typed on iPhones. This book (and film) is not for the cynic. It's for people like me that want to leave a mark in the world; just not one that cost 10 billion dollars.

The construction of the book meshes well with its organization and lends itself successfully to the study of our national deficit throughout our history. Packed with figures and facts related to the federal budget, the stock market, the GDP, Social Security, et al., I.O.U.S.A is a refreshing look at the state of affairs in our county, and moreover, how it relates to the rest of the world market.

A very good read for accountants and novices alike, I.O.U.S.A. will make you take a step back and analyze not only our country's spending, but our own personal spending habits as well.

This book is padded out junk.
It's a sell out - insipid and unimaginative.

This film does a very good job at scaring people. Some of the figures and projections are bonechilling. However, it largely overstates the problem. We've handled deficits before. We ran an enormous deficit during the WW-II era (over 100% of GDP), so the current deficit (around 3% of GDP) is not a "fiscal cancer" as the IOUSA team would have you believe.

More importantly though, the film missed an opportunity to offer a real solution to the deficit problem -- health care. If our country's health care system were as efficient as the systems in other industrialized countries, and if programs like Medicare/Medicaid could take advantage of these lower costs, our deficit problem would virtually disappear. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a nice graphic that demonstrates this well:

http://www.cepr.net/calculators/iousadeficit/calc_iousa_deficit.html

This public awareness is needed, but is it too late?
This review is primarily about the book, not the film. But the "IOUSA" film was produced and blended with this book written by Addison Wiggin, and the overlapping information about both the book and the film is relevant to IOUSA's basic message.

With IOUSA, the information regarding the coming calamity is finally being presented to the general public on a large scale. This is no longer an esoteric issue. Very few Americans were aware of this problem, until recently. The myopic public was and is, not concerned about this. People are too busy working, raising families, paying bills, and buying consumer products. The problem is insolvency. This issue is the #1 threat to the United States.

Here is the definition of insolvency:

"When an individual or organization can no longer meet its financial obligations with its lender or lenders as debts become due." Regarding the US government, we call "debts," to be the "promised payouts" (obligations) in the coming future as entitlements payouts.


THE BIG, OPEN SECRET:

This problem has been known about for several decades. But it wasn't discussed until now, because D-Day is arriving soon. It's right around the corner. There is no way out of it. There are reasons for omitting any discussion of America's coming insolvency to the US public for the last several decades, because 1. it's real 2. it's bad, and 3. there haven't been and still aren't enough politicians willing to address this topic. Number 4, is perhaps the biggest reason: there are no viable solutions, except to start radically reducing entitlements. But this is the Third Rail....

The I.O.U.S.A. book and film were produced and put together well. Financial numbers and demographical statistics can bore readers quickly, so the general presentation is a large part of IOUSA's effectiveness in print and on film. Other reviews have noted the lack of "meat." In my opinion, more "meat" isn't needed. These are basically numbers and population demographics: basic math.

The book accurately notes the foundations of this historical dilemma. The 4 deficits the US has had and still has are one, the savings deficit (lack of personal saving, and in governmental budgets) two, the trade deficit (current account deficit) three, the federal deficit (annual deficits and total national debt) and four, the leadership deficit, noted above already. (Leaders not only not doing anything, but actually contributing to this train crash.)

There are two sections in this book. The first is presenting the information and the second is comprised of interviews of analysts and well-known financial investors. Perhaps these famous investors were included to give some credibility to the statistics, which alone by themselves, are factually correct. There's no need to corroborate the math, or the projected numbers. Nobody is challenging these numbers.

Politically, finger pointing and shallow partisanship are irrelevant as they aren't a part of the solution. The entire government and public are responsible for the creation of this mess and they - we - are responsible for enacting the potential solutions.

The message in IOUSA is in coordination with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation which distributed the documentary film that was produced. A critical person in spreading the message is David Walker, the former comptroller General of the GAO. (The nation's top accountant.) Walker and Robert Bixby went on a "fiscal wake-up tour" across the nation, in an awareness campaign for IOUSA.

This book doesn't need to lead the reader toward skepticism and negativity. It's simply the truth. The truth based on mathematics. When mathematics and statistics are compiled honestly and accurately - the numbers do not lie.

Instead of pessimism one can adjust his/her life adequately to make the life-style and financial moves necessary because of the factual information in this book. On an individual basis you cannot stop what will happen, but you can plan accordingly.

If you're concerned about your children's future and you want to understand how America's debt problem will affect their ability to live in a world of opportunity and prosperity, you must read I.O.U.S.A. immediately. Inside you will travel a straight forward and very readable journey through the four major deficits that are poised to bankrupt the United States and cripple your children's future. If you've ever been unclear on how the annual deficit relates to the federal debt, or how the personal savings deficit relates to the trade deficit, you will find clear answers backed by fascinating historical accounts and an array of interviews with the top economic thinkers of our time. While this is a companion book to the movie documentary, it is very much a stand alone work and a complete read in and of itself. Of particular importance to your children's future is what the book calls the leadership deficit in Washington. This section hits at the heart of why no one in government is doing anything about this and why the current culture in Washington perpetuates the debt problem into the future. All in all an admirable and entertaining work of what many would consider a dull topic. I highly recommend it.

This is a must read for anyone who is vaguely interested in the near term direction our economy and country is taking. The message is clear, interesting and easy to understand. The writing style is simple and entertaining and is a good way to reach people who have little desire to understand the big picture issues of the country. I have two issues with the book. 1)Even though the book was written a few months ago, current events have over taken it. i.e. the debt is well over $10,000,000,000,000. and 2) The editing was done very poorly. Who did they get to proof read the transcript? The poor quality of the publishing detracts from the message as it gives the reader a feeling it was written by a public high school junior.

It appears that this book was released as a companion to the movie/DVD of the same name. Problem is, the DVD has not been released; you can only see it if you attend film festivals or ferret out some limited viewing in a few cities. And it is not a substitute for the film, like reading a novel and then comparing it to the movie; rather, this is a support piece to the DVD itself.
The first 90 pages are an excellent introduction to, and summary of, an enormous problem that our country is facing, namely monstrous deficits and debt; I would give it 5 stars if the first half was the whole book - -perhaps a little 90-page book that cost [...].
But the second half of the book, the "complete" interviews of the folks featured in the movie, leaves me wondering if there is even any hope of ever agreeing on solutions, since it seems they all have different opinions on cause and effect, who is responsible for what, and where we might go from here. (The book came out before the recent financial collapse; so the opinions of some seem completely off-base.)
Anyway, I rate the second half of the book one star, giving the book an overall (generous) rating of two and a half stars. Perhaps my opinion will improve once I am able to see the movie and can then put the interviews in context; but it really seems like they should have released the DVD before the book; or, at least the book and DVD as a "combo" package. See the movie first; if you like it, buy this book.

I.O.U.S.A. is the follow-on to Wiggin's best-selling Empire of Debt. It focuses a lot on the stories of people in the previous book who are tasked with making decisions regarding the four deficits our country faces: trade deficit, savings deficit, federal deficit, and the aptly-named leadership deficit. To give you a feel for some of the folks he talked to for the book, it's the likes of: Warren Buffet, Robert Rubin, Alice Rivlin, Pete Peterson, David Walker, Paul O'Neill, James Areddy, and Bill Bonner.

With America's federal debt at $8.6 trillion and growing, it's important to understand how this will impact the countries future, including entitlement programs we've grown to rely on, like Social Security and Medicare. The book isn't perfect, but it looks at a topic that every American will benefit from increasing his or her familiarity with.

Another book I recommend strongly because it is superb and has helped me immensely in keeping my own, errr, "deficits" under control is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.

This topic needs to be discussed in American. I rank the word debt right up there with other four letter words. This book talks more about the movie and refers to "Empire of debt" another book by the same author, constantly. Maybe I should have read that book before, but the reviews on it were not that great.

You know how the book is usually better than the movie, I think this might be the first time it is reversed.

This book made the coming deficit disaster so clear that it was downright scary. I almost wish I hadn't read it. I honestly don't know if there are any realistic solutions, but "I.O.U.S.A." helped me understand something that till now I'd only grasped in the vaguest way. Everyone in the U.S. should read it. Maybe then we could avert disater, but I'm not holding my breath.

This book talks more about the credibility of the people they're interviewing than giving us any productive knowledge about what to do about america's debt problems. although i definitely agreed with its view of america's debt problems, and i'm glad to hear that these people are taking it on themselves to raise awareness to the general public which does need to happen, i still would not recommend this book to a friend. i would just tell them about it in 5 minutes and save them the couple hours of reading

I.O.U.S.A. is a "nuts and bolts" basic look at the potential financial crisis still ahead of us. While economics in college was tolerated, this book makes it interesting and relevant. It's a wake up call for the average American, and a call to arms to hold our leaders (and ourselves) accountable
for the choices we have made and will make in the future.

Enlightening. I bought the book after seeing the movie. Both helped me understand parts of the debt crisis that I didn't fully get before. Some of the dangers it warns against seem to be unfolding now.

I've developed a far more skeptical attitude towards the stock market recently, largely because of IOUSA. This skepticism has helped me dodge some of the recent equity losses. I realize this is extremely short-term, but at least I'm aware of the arguments opposing Wall St's continual bull-pumping. The traditional mentality of "don't sell now, it's the best time to buy" is incredibly ingrained in our society. People forget that on occasion there are extended periods of time that are really really bad to invest in equity markets.

This book (and the movie it's based on) helped me realize these things.

This book covers an important topic, and gains credibility by the participation of the former Controller General of the United States. However, the material is mostly boring stream of thought from the first author, and some of the important charts are VERY difficult to read and interpret

I got this hoping to learn a lot about our national debt problem: what exactly it means, how big the problems are, what the causes are, etc. This book has almost nothing of that: whatever discussion there is of actual facts is just meant to make the reader understand this is a big problem--something anyone who buys this book already knows. That is to say, this book is very lacking in statistics and study of what they mean.
The book is arranged in two sections: the first part is the informative section, and the other half is a collection of interviews with supposed experts. Unfortunately, most of the information section is just a narrative walkthrough of how they made the movie: "While we were making the movie, we found out about this student group which is doing the same thing as us. They are on these campuses. 'The national debt is a real problem,' says the group's leader. Hopefully they'll continue their work." Nothing of actual substance. And at the end of each chapter comes a set of "solutions," offering nothing we haven't heard before. "Congress needs to begin making realistic decisions," "Leaders must be held accountable," etc.
Maybe the movie is better, but all in all, I wish I hadn't bought this.

What a great read. I think what I like about this book is the format and the perfect level of detail. If you are looking for a scholarly analysis of our debt situation, keep looking. But if you are "ordinary" like me, this should keep you intrigued. I like the way the book is half problem analysis, with the other half being interviews of 12 financial "experts". Those interviewed present an intersting contrast in opinion. Great and timely book. You'll like it.