In this Disaster Flick, What's Running Red is Federal Budget
By Steve Jordan
World-Herald Staff Writer
August 20, 2008
Pete Peterson's father was a 17-year-old immigrant without a penny or word of English and only a third-grade education when he got a job washing dishes aboard a Union Pacific train in Nebraska.
Peter G. Peterson
George Petropoulos (a name he and a brother Americanized to Peterson) saved his money and eventually opened a Greek diner in Kearney. Central Cafe was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 25 years.
Petropoulos knew only one American song, "God Bless America." When he sang it, tears streamed down his face in gratitude for what he was able to accomplish in the United States.
The elder Peterson believed in making charitable donations, his son said, even if his children didn't have new bicycles or the family a new car. He also invested heavily in his children's education, sending young Peter to Northwestern University.
Today Peter G. Peterson, 82, says his distinguished career in the public and private sectors started with the values his father passed on, including hard work, love of country and a willingness to sacrifice to serve others.
If you attend "I.O.U.S.A."
When: 7 p.m. Thursday; regular theater release starts Friday.
Where: Oak View 24 ($18), 3555 S. 140th Plaza in Omaha; Star Cinema IMAX ($12), 3220 23rd Ave., Council Bluffs (Thursday only).
Tickets: At theaters or online ticket sites.
Panel discussion: Following the movie, originating at the Holland Center for Performing Arts and shown at 400 theaters nationwide; attendance by invitation only.
Panelists: Warren Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.; William Niskanen, chairman, CATO Institute; Bill Novelli, CEO, AARP; Pete Peterson, senior chairman, Blackstone Group and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation; David Walker, president and CEO, Peterson Foundation, former U.S. comptroller general.
To ask a question: In advance, click on Omaha Town Hall at www.IOUSAtheMovie.com.
He has committed up to $1 billion to promote a campaign that will take center stage in Omaha on Thursday: reversing the buildup of public debt, correcting the imbalance of foreign trade, improving Americans' savings practices and finding the political will to make tough decisions.
His foundation purchased the documentary "I.O.U.S.A." and will show it at 400 theaters nationwide beginning Thursday. Afterward, a panel discussion in Omaha will be broadcast nationally. Among the panelists will be Peterson's longtime friend, investor Warren Buffett. "We wanted him participating, and he wasn't able to fly east, so we came to him, as it were," Peterson said. "We're going to try a lot of things, since money is not our problem. We may be able to do it at a scale which has never been attempted before."
Peterson was commerce secretary under President Nixon and later chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, among other positions. Because of a sale of stock last year in an investment company he co-founded, Peterson is on Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people. That sudden wealth, as much as $2.5 billion, gives Peterson a chance to improve the nation's dismal finances, an issue he has talked about for nearly 30 years.
"I have more than enough, and I owe this country a great deal," he said. "I love my children and my grandchildren. What better thing to do than to try to waken America, in particular the youth, to this huge problem? It's, after all, their future that we are imperiling." Whatever remains from his estate after bequests to his five children will go to the foundation, so the campaign for fiscal responsibility will continue.
The danger, he said, is that the government won't do anything and that at some point the U.S. economy will collapse, a "hard landing" of devalued currency, high unemployment and other disasters that could ruin the futures of generations, he said. Peterson has written articles about such problems as the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But so far, he said, the public has not demanded action and officials have done nothing substantive.
But now he plans and can afford an all-out effort to create public pressure.
"Since I am deeply concerned about the future, what could be worse than waking up 10 or 15 years from now, if I'm still around, and seeing some of these hard landings and worst cases materialize and not having done anything about it?
"That's no alternative at all. So I decided to put my money where my mouth and my pen have been."
The bipartisan campaign, which relies on experts from both political parties, targets young people, who have the most to lose from today's spending trends, he said.
"It's a lot less painful if you start now," Peterson said. "Even though it would take a number of years, it would help build confidence in the way we're managing our economic and fiscal affairs."
Peterson, who is married to Joan Ganz Cooney, a co-founder of Children's Television Network, said government must limit spending and entitlements, and give people incentives to save rather than spend.
His foundation hired David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency and a longtime critic of government overspending, to head the campaign. They met recently with congressional leaders and senior federal officials from both parties.
"And they say, 'I agree, Pete and Dave, that they (government entitlement programs) are unsustainable, and it's an extremely serious problem.'
"But the politics are such that they consider it not only politically dangerous to raise some of these tough issues, but they consider it, I guess you might say, politically terminal."
Elected officials say they aren't hearing much from the public about the problems, Peterson said.
Peterson and Walker want voters to ask their congressional representatives, "What exactly are you planning to do about it?'"
The question, he said, is whether people will endure a level of sacrifice like that experienced by Americans who fought, financed and paid off the nation's costliest war, World War II.
That generation then rebuilt Europe to preserve peace, supported construction of the Interstate highway system and funded the G.I. Bill, he added.
"We seem to have become an indulgent, entitled, myopic society. I don't believe that suddenly parents and grandparents have become so selfish and self-absorbed that they don't care about their children and their grandchildren."
The movie, the panel discussion and the rest of the campaign are intended to give Americans the unvarnished truth about the nation's spending and saving habits and where it is headed.
"I'm the happy and lucky recipient of the American dream," Peterson said. "I seriously wonder whether the American dream would be there for my grandchildren."
Contact the writer: 444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1208&u_sid=10410652
