Power of Zero Documentary with David McKnight

Some people don't read books. Creating a documentary is a way to reach those people. Plenty of people read the book but are still unconvinced that tax rates are going to be higher in the future than they are today. The documentary was a way of bringing together the most compelling experts in the country with something meaningful to say about debt and putting them on record. The tax train is coming. If you were sitting on a train track with a huge freight train bearing down on you what you do. For those of us who have accumulated the lion's share of our retirement in 401(k)'s and IRA's, we have a huge freight train bearing down on us and it's coming in the form of higher taxes. You have a couple of choices of what to do: you can pretend like the problem doesn't really exist and the math doesn't add up, or you can face it head-on. David Walker made an Oscar-nominated movie back in 2009 called IOUSA about the debt at the time where it sat at around $10 trillion. Nearly ten years later we're sitting on over $21 trillion in debt. The stated national debt is $21 trillion but if you count the unfunded liabilities that have been promised it totals up to over $200 trillion. Allen Arbuck makes a very compelling case that printing our way out of our problems is not a solution. Printing money isn't going to do the trick. The real issue that we're facing here that's going to squeeze everything out of the budget is Medicare. It's not five years from now or eight years from now, we're in a crisis right now. -George Schult. Tom McClintock is a congressman and on the Republican Budget Committee and he doesn't pull any punches. According to Tom, in eight years we will be where Venezuela is now. According to Gary Herbert, the Governor of Utah, we have the Democrats and Republicans sitting in the front seat of the car and we're heading towards a fiscal cliff. If no one relinquishes the steering wheel and compromises, the car goes over the cliff and we all go with it. There are lots of nations in the history of the world that have taken the same course, it's not like we are forging into new territory. 401(k)'s and IRA's are like the government saying "Hey look, I want to loan you some money. I don't need the money to be paid back right now. I'm not going to tell you what the interest rate is on the loan I'm going to give you but I will come back to you when I do need the money." Would you ever cash that check? Van Miller speaks about the demographic issues facing the country that is only just beginning. Most of the Baby Boomers have yet to retire. The real heavy birth rates didn't happen until well into the fifties. Getting all these experts into the movie was very tricky. There were certainly some very harrowing weeks were no one had committed to be in the movie at all! But once we got David Walker to agree, we were able to use his name to convince others. One of the people we really liked in the movie was Armstrong Williams. He spoke very passionately and eloquently about the issues and says that now is the time to speak to your representatives. We are really getting to the point where, as Tom McClintock says, we could approach what is called a sovereign debt crisis. If you're a financial advisor, go to thetaxtrain.com to watch the movie and get DVD's to distribute to your clients. If you're a Baby Boomer that wants to know more, the movie will be available in April or you can ask your financial advisor.