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Title: Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit by Robert D. Manning ISBN: 0-465-04367-4 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 24 December, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.72 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: interesting analysis of debt.....
Comment: Although there is a short attack on Reagan deficit spending during the eighties, this book mainly focuses on America's increasing dependence on short term debt (i.e. credit cards). Since Mr. Manning is a sociologist he tries to pay particular attention to how societal attitudes have changed. How the puritan ideal of frugality and thrift has been pushed aside for a new philosophy that emphasizes materialism and luxury.
I thought the most interesting chapter did not have to do with credit card debt at all but the peripheral bank industry (check cashing etc..) that are financed by large banking institutions. Manning makes the case that the reason that banks have pulled out of poor areas is not because banks can't be profitable there, as the industry has long claimed, but because they can make so much more through the loan shark businesses they finance. It makes one think that the U.S. ant-trust division should be more worried about Citibank than Microsoft.
My only gripe with this book was the author's attack on student credit card debt. He seems to blame the credit card companies way too much. I was not nearly as sympathetic to Manning's stories of students who needed to buy expensive clothes or go to Europe so they "could fit in", as I was to people that were laid off and so desperate for money that they had to get into debt.
Rating: 2
Summary: Had this professor when he was researching this book
Comment: I know Professor Manning from his days teaching class at Georgetown and American universities in DC. He was a fairly nice guy and a decent professor, with some fun arguments. My problem with this book was how selectively he researched some of the information. Not that he ignores importent sociological and economic trends, but for example I remember him polling me about my credit card spending as a college student. When I responded that I got the card as part of a through-the-mail low-interest offer when I was 18 and had successfully managed the debt and payments, he seemed uninterested, largely because my response did not fall within the paradigm supporting his book.
All in all an interesting book, with some important facts, but skewed.
Rating: 4
Summary: Comprehensive Study of Consumer Debt
Comment: A striking and keen assessment of the credit card industry and damning expose'of corporate tactics to lure the unsuspecting and inexperienced into a life of consumerism. This comprehensive text outlines many of the megabanking tactics to increase their bottom line at the expense of the American consumer. The predatory marketing strategies and extensive profits of the credit card industry are exposed and provide the reader with information the banks do not want you to know.
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Title: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Warren Tyagi ISBN: 0465090826 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Paying with Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing by David Evans, Richard Schmalensee ISBN: 0262550377 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need by Juliet B. Schor ISBN: 0060977582 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt by Teresa A. Sullivan, Elizabeth Warren, Jay Lawrence Westbrook ISBN: 0300091710 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John De Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor, David Horsey, Scott Simon, John de Graaf ISBN: 1576751996 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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