The doc does a good job of laying out a very complex problem, focusing on four types of debt: Federal debt (not as bad as you think, only a $250 billion or so deficit), savings debt (we basically don't save anymore because we're encouraged to spend), trade deficit (arguably the scariest, and I'll tell you why in a minute) and, most importantly according to U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, a leadership debt.
The trade deficit is scary because when a country like, say, China owns a lot of our wealth, they can, if they really want to, cash out. Now, why would anyone do that? Well, the film gives an excellent example. Back during the Suez Canal crisis, we really wanted Britain and France to back off because the USSR (remember them?) was about to take Egypt's side against them. Britain and France said no. We said, "Okay, remember all those British pounds we've invested in? We'd like to sell those, please." Britain and France folded to our demands within a week. We had it in our power to basically destroy the British pound (today, not so much).
That's not to say China is planning on pushing us around (much) in the near future. But the point is, they can. And every year that goes by that we owe them more money, they can more.
The other really infuriating history lesson the film highlights (well, there are many, actually, but we only have so much time) is the story behind the U.S. leaving the gold standard. I always assumed this was done because of some new economic theory that was all the rage and made sense at the time and blah, blah, blah. The version of the story the film tells goes something more like this.
In the early '70s, France (and they weren't the only ones who felt this way) saw how we were spending money on social programs at home and on a particularly expensive war in Vietnam (And hey, they knew how expensive Vietnam could be. Am I right, folks?) and said "Hey, maybe we should turn those dollars we've got in for gold because they might not be worth much soon." Nixon and his buddies (especially Haldeman) anticipated this move and said, "What if those dollars weren't so much attached to gold as, say, nothing?" So, the conversation between France and the U.S. ends up going something like this.
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