RSS Add-Me
Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders by James D. Scurlock
 | Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders James D. Scurlock Date: 2007-03-06 — 24.00 — Book
Rating: C+
|
Maxed Out is a book accompaniment to the documentary James Scurlock did on the effect credit cards and other easy credit has had on American society. For the most part it's an emotional appeal, organized more by geography than anything else, telling the story of Scurlock's journey across America to speak with anyone destroyed by credit who would speak to him.
There are plenty of sad stories, from suicides to court martials to foreclosures. Scurlock talks to a woman in the South who had nothing but her home. She lives on a government subsidy and takes care of her adult son who is quite mentally impaired. She was targeted by easy credit who arranged a refinance of her house to cover a few thousand dollars in credit card debt. Now, of course, that house is in jeopardy, and the kicker is - they're still being solicited for more credit.
Scurlock interviewed parents of college students who killed themselves, panicking at the balances on the credit cards pushed on them by the industry. One of those parents is still getting threatening calls about those debts from collectors who insist she should "honor [her son's] memory" by paying off the credit cards.
He interviews a wheeler-deeler in the real estate market who is busy building a house of cards on speculation. He talks to a couple of hot shot kids who have built People First Recoveries, a collection agency that prides itself on wringing people dry and yet insists it's doing some good. He talks to Dave Ramsey, the radio personality and author.
Scurlock also discusses the new bankruptcy law Congress just passed, a law that makes it more difficult for the average family to get out from under the staggering pile of credit debt the credit industry waved in front of them like a dream but does nothing to stop the industry from ensnaring any other families in the same debt trap.
Ultimately, Maxed Out's strength lies in its ability to get an emotional reaction out of the reader. It's hard to read the stories of these people's credit enslavement and not get mad. But Scurlock also lets his anger slip into his narrative and becomes sarcastic, snide, or condescending, and this is less appealing. The overall message here is fairly simplistic as well: People, good; Credit industry, bad. It's easy enough to agree to the second half of this equation, so aggressive, immoral, and predatory is this industry we all know too well, but the first half? Well, people aren't black and white, even when they're victims. Scurlock gives his subjects a free pass on any sort of personal responsibility for their problems, and indicts the industry wholesale. That makes for stronger rhetoric, but not an entirely satisfactory explanation. And Scurlock offers few solutions here for this staggering problem, and no in-depth discussion of the ones he does put forth.
This is a good book for the reader who likes to be angry at injustice, but not for the reader who wants an organized argument of America's bad relationship with credit and suggestions for how we individuals can affect change. A flawed effort; let's hope the documentary is better.