*In the wake of the deregulation of the lending industry, U.S. banks have decided to target millions of borrowers who can least afford credit cards And once those unfortunate folks fall behind in their payments, most now get stuck on a treadmill of neverending indebtedness, many for the rest of their lives.

      In Debt We Trust is an educational expose' which ought to be watched by anyone thinking about signing up for their first piece of plastic because, today, the average college student owes $50,000 by the time they graduate. While $30,000 of that figure is in tuition loans, the balance is accounted for by an accumulation of consumer spending inflated by interested and fees.

      The film opens in a black church where collections are now taken up weekly not for God but to help parishioners pay off their credit cards. Later, we see consumer advocate Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) assert that the new bankruptcy law deserves a share of the blame, since it makes it virtually impossible to break free of the trap deliberately set by the country's financial conglomerates.

      What is most shocking is how most politicians, instead of protecting the interests of their constituents, have played into the hands of the lending institution lobby by passing any law it proposes in return for campaign contributions. As a result, the country has become a Credit Industrial Complex where repossession and foreclosure have become commonplace rather than the exception.

      Consumers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our plastic!

This story ran on EURweb on May 3, 2007.