May 24, 2010: Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
This lightweight documentary about how cheap credit has led to the typical American being too heavily leveraged (i.e. in debt), is a fascinating window into a recent but completely vanished era. Released in 2006, just before the oil price spike and later credit collapse, it seems obvious in hindsight that trouble was unavoidable, and it’s a bit scary how quickly the expected results played out. It’s even more scary how well known the troubles were long before they got so far out of hand that nobody could stop the carnage.
A mix of interview footage with regular people, interviews with a few academics, and stock footage from congressional hearings and gatherings, Maxed Out focuses on presenting individual stories in order to generate outrage at the companies irresponsibly handing out cheap credit, but the film doesn’t make a big point of personal responsibility or about how the system itself should fundamentally change, other than specific suggested changes in order to prevent the particular cases it examines. Presented with an array of personal interest stories from people who were caught off guard but clearly should have known better, I felt that it cheapened the experiences of people who got caught in a broken system and were wronged or otherwise chewed up due to circumstances beyond their control. I was particularly struck by the differences between Canada and the US because of health care. That is one big factor which is outside of people’s control in the US and can take down even financially prudent Americans, but can’t as easily cause trouble for a Canadian. Outside of that factor, on either side of the border, it’s typically personal choice which puts people in debt.
Since 2006, TARP and other bailouts have completely dwarfed the numbers this movie is looking at, when it examines government spending habits. The aftermath of hurricane Katrina was still fairly recent at the time of Maxed Out, which now seems like such an innocent earlier time. Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders is a valuable snapshot of a particular time in recent years, before the bloom was off the rose but well into the time when it was clear to anyone who looked that doom was imminent. It’s amazing the difference a few years can make.
An era not so long ago.
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