Download Press Kit James Scurlock interview on NPR's Marketplace Money America, Maxed Out From the Mirage of a Middle-Class Life to the Slavery of Debt www.creditland.org interview with James Scurlock Washington Post Feature ABC NEWS NOW Interview with James Scurlock CNBC Video Feature Radio interview with James Scurlock USA TODAY March 5, 2007 Radio interview with James Scurlock Yahoo Finance getrichslowly.org Maxed Out Joshua Rothkopf Fear films come in all sorts of shades: slasher, stalker, hillbilly's breakfast, Japanese ghost story. Finally, we have one about credit-card debt. (Oh, you pay your bills on time? No debt at all? Get outta my face.) Using techniques hardly more elevated than those in a January horror flick, Maxed Out builds an impressive head of menace in its extreme depiction of America's predatory lending practices. Mothers weep after their college kids commit suicide over Visa abuse. Reptilian collection agents happily compare themselves to "piratesÉpushing you out on the plank." Ministers insist on contributions from their destitute flock. Republicans push through bankruptcy legislation written by MBNA. Truthfully, the situation isn't much exaggerated. Director James D. Scurlock actually gains more traction in his documentary's more sedate moments, such as the revelation that the government spends more money on bank interest than on defense and education combined. And while it's always fun to sit in on a sumptuous Vegas lunch with the ever-saucy Robin LeachÑhimself a cognizant exploiter of our love of things we can't affordÑthe documentary has a quiet voice of sanity in Harvard economics professor Elizabeth Warren, who sees the pattern approaching an endgame of zero worth. Do not see this film if you worry about money. (Opens Fri; Cinema Village.) Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders David Edelstein, New York Magazine James Scurlock's documentary Maxed Out tells the bone-chilling, bloodcurdling, hair-raising story of a country (guess which one?) that's up to its eyeballs in credit-card debt. The causes are various, among them pipe dreams of affluence (cue Robin Leach) and falling "real" wages. But the insanity is chiefly the upshot of what Scurlock calls "predatory lenders"Ñbanks that shower us all with card offers but target especially the riskiest prospects, the ones with a bad history and "a taste for credit." See, the less chance you have of paying off your balance at the end of the month, the greater the potential profit. It's a topsy-turvyÑand potentially fatalÑway of keeping an economy afloat, but hey, lenders are making out like bandits. Maxed Out features interviews with mothers of two college kids who took the bait, ran up what must have seemed like insurmountable debts, and hanged themselves. They are long buried, but the mail for one still brings credit-card offers. Then there is the late-middle-aged woman who hid her gambling debts until her husbandÑfollowing the advice of good-guy radio host (and born-again Christian) Dave RamseyÑordered a copy of his credit report. The day before it arrived, she bought a few dollars' worth of gas and disappeared with her carÑvery likely into a nearby river, which her family scans regularly (as the water level drops) for a radio antenna sticking up. Oh, the stories Scurlock tells. There are Kafkaesque ones, of people mistakenly declared dead on credit reports who must be dead, damn it. There are ones that start out goofy, like the guy who gets into a wrangle with his credit-card holder, Providian, over the billing for a piece of junk that was supposed to melt his abdomen fat. It becomes less goofy when we hear about Providian's habit of holding or losing checks to bump up customers' interest rates, which led to a fine against the company of hundreds of millions of dollarsÑwhich led, in a roundabout way, to the nomination of Providian's former president to be George W. Bush's business-ethics czar. I could list more examples, but you get the idea. Given the statistics, you might have gotten the idea already, thanks to a minimum balance you once couldn't pay and the nice people you met as a result. Scurlock profiles Robert Johnson and Chris Winkler, two prosperous young entrepreneurs in the jolly business of debt buying, men who discover new ways every day to ratchet up the pressure on the folks who owe them money. Thanks to legislation that the movie says was written by MBNA, it's more difficult than ever to escape them by declaring bankruptcy. One of the many strangeÑand delightfulÑthings about Maxed Out is the way it uses an old-fashioned educational short in which a sagacious authority figure counsels a student couple on the wise use of credit. We're used to rolling our eyes in the face of such stern fifties patriarchal propagandaÑbut damned if that old white guy doesn't make good sense. How curious that the patriarchs of the 21st century want to steer us into debt. Documentaries like Maxed Out make for excellent aversion therapy. Although weaned on Quarter Pounders with Cheese, I haven't set foot in a McDonald's since I saw Morgan Spurlock vomit one out a car window in Super Size Me. Is Spurlock related to Scurlock? This is an even scarier movie. After watching Maxed Out, I vowed to pay off all my credit cards at once and buy everything thereafter with cash. Of course, if I carried around that much cash, I'd need a gun, which would bring me smack up against another aversion-therapy documentary, Bowling for Columbine. No wonder people drive into rivers. A Horror Movie For Our Times By Michelle Singletary Sunday, March 4, 2007 For this month's Color of Money Book Club selection, I'm doing something a little different. I'm recommending both a movie and a book. And trust me: Both will have you rethinking the deep dependence so many of us have on credit. The twofer this month is the feature-length documentary "Maxed Out" and a companion book, "Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders" (Scribner, $24). The movie opens in select markets beginning Friday. To find out if the film is playing in a city near you, go to http://www.trulyindie.com and search under "Coming Soon." I think every high school at least should show the film to its student body. James D. Scurlock, author and director of "Maxed Out," hopes to do with the overselling of credit what former vice president Al Gore has done for global warming -- elevate people's consciousness about a terrible threat to our existence. In this case, it's our financial well-being. Both the book and film examine the proliferation of debt in America. Among others, Scurlock interviews debt collectors, a Harvard professor, pawnbrokers, people in debt and the people who have watched loved ones struggle with debt. I laughed at old black-and-white clips of students being taught how hard it is to qualify for credit. You have to have good character and a proven capacity to pay it back, an unnamed man tells a young boy and girl. I was most moved by two mothers, Janne O'Donnell and Trisha Johnson, who sit side-by-side and talk about their children -- college students -- who committed suicide largely because of credit card debts. O'Donnell's son had amassed a debt of $12,000 on 10 credit cards. Johnson's daughter was a freshman when she spread her credit card bills on her bed and then hanged herself. She owed $2,500. Scurlock's book takes you along on his journey to make the documentary. He takes a few missteps in the beginning when he criticizes radio talk-show host Dave Ramsey, who rightly encourages people to get out of debt and shun credit (except for a home mortgage). As in his film, Scurlock's snide references to tithing come off as useless potshots rather than insightful dialogue. People are not in debt because they tithe, as he seems to suggest. But when Scurlock focuses on the larger issue of easy credit, he's right on the money. "The federal government -- and the majority of Americans -- can no longer get by a single day without taking on additional debt," Scurlock writes. "And as more borrowing goes to simply pay off old debt, or to make interest payments, the new debt does little more than increase banking profits." Here are some facts Scurlock points out: * The Commerce Department reported that the nation's personal savings rate for all of 2006 was negative 1 percent, the worst since the Great Depression. * From July 1, 2005, to last June 30, there were almost 1.5 million personal bankruptcy filings. * Credit card issuers have increased the number of mailed credit card offerings sixfold since 1990, from just over 1.1 billion to a record 6 billion in 2005. * Revolving credit card debt, the amount you don't pay off every month, increased 6 percent from $827 billion to $876 billion in 2006. * Low- and middle-income households have, on average, $8,650 in credit card debt. "There is an even greater misconception at work," Scurlock writes and presents in his film. "A misconception that debt is not what it used to be. That there is 'good' debt, for example, and 'bad' debt. The idea that one should stay out of debt, period, is now considered unrealistic. Even more frightening is the notion that debt is our friend -- a magical tool that allows us, in the words of Napster's new ads, to 'own nothing, have everything.' " That definitely deserves an "Amen." Scurlock said his goal for the book and the movie was to "paint the story of our debt-fueled culture in broad strokes." He says he wants to challenge the assumptions about the way we live our lives and shift the debate. "Do we really want to be in perpetual debt?" he asks. Read this book or watch the movie and perhaps you'll answer with a resounding "no." The movie opens Friday at Landmark's E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW. 21 Feb 2007 - U.S. film shows despair under mountain of debt By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa NEW YORK, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Sky-high interest rates on credit cards can make a mountain of debt seem insurmountable. Eventually for some, it is. An unfortunate minority depicted in the new movie "Maxed Out" finds the burden too great to bare: suicide seems like the only way out. America's predilection for debt is well documented. U.S. consumers owe over $2.4 trillion, nearly one fifth the size of the total economy. As a country, the United States borrows over $2 billion a day to cover an insatiable demand. Larger-than-life as they seem, these figures mask individual tales of tragedy and despair, according to "Maxed Out," which gives viewers a peek at moments when indebtedness becomes deadly. Director James Scurlock uses those personal tales as a platform for a critique of the financial industry, arguing that far from discouraging irresponsible borrowing, the big banks rely on it for the core of their profits. "Banks and credit card companies are setting their customers up to fail," said Scurlock. "When we inevitably fall behind, they can charge late fees, over-limit fees and the stratospheric interest rates that drive their profits." Indeed, bank profits broke new records in 2006, despite slowing economic growth. Fee income was often cited as a key source of earnings. The banks themselves argue they are only offering credit to those who need and want it, and that the parties involved should be responsible for paying back what they owe. Furthermore, they say they are in full compliance with existing government regulations on lending. "There are programs out there for people who are having problems," said Tracey Mills, a spokesperson for the American Bankers' Association. "If movies like 'Maxed Out' encourage people to reach out to those programs, then we hope that happens. It creates better customers for banks. We want long-term customers." Scurlock suggests that rather than acting as a regulatory break, politicians actively encourage the predatory behavior of lenders, coming up with ever more elaborate loopholes for the industry, which is a key campaign contributor. Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy expert at Harvard Law School who is featured in the film, says that instead of reining in financial firms, the government has become an advocate for them. "One would expect the government to come down on the side of the consumer," said Warren. "Instead, it regulates on the side of the banks." CREDIT MARAUDERS One factor favoring the industry, according to the movie, is a lack of privacy protection that allows debt collectors to amass detailed information about debtors and their families. One employee of a collections firm featured in the film fancies himself a modern-day pirate: "You want to push them out on that plank as far as possible without making them jump," he says. Their methods include calling family members and neighbors in the hopes that the embarrassment factor will shame debtors into payback. Banks note that the credit boom has helped fuel economic growth. But skeptics say the gains are not sustainable, and are already coming back to haunt many American families. "Households, in their quest for sources of financing, have now been moved from mortgage borrowing to credit cards," notes Gabriel Stein, economist at Lombard Research. "This is extremely bad news for the U.S. economy over the course of 2007 and suggests that households are at their last gasp to find some form of credit." TRAGEDY OF ERRORS Scurlock said he set out to take a comic look at America's spending excesses. But as he dug deeper, most of what he found was tragic. "I thought this was going to be a light-hearted romp through the world of credit," he said. "But when I started interviewing people, I came to realize how emotional this topic is. We talked to bankruptcy attorneys and they said these clients will come in absolutely prepared to commit suicide." Scurlock tells bizarre tales of lawyers whose safes contained the guns -- and even cyanide in one case -- of suicidal clients, for whom a visit to the lawyers' office had been a last hope. Such stories abound in the film. One features two mothers who lost their children to suicide. Both victims had amassed massive credit card bills in college. Such lending is readily available to students, with credit card companies setting up booths with giveaways to entice would-be borrowers -- even though most college kids have yet to hold down their first real job. Yet, rather than discouraging such practices, regulators look the other way. The message of Scurlock's film, which arrives in theaters on March 9, is clear: regulators' links to the industry are too tight for political appointees to keep financial services firms in check. Or, in the Harvard law professor Warren's words: "The lobbying dollars are all on the side of industry. That's why they get to make the rules."