| Maxed Out: Hard Times in the Age of Easy Credit | 
 enlarge | Author: James D. Scurlock
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 478477
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 1416532536
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.743
EAN: 9781416532538
ASIN: 1416532536
Publication Date: December 26, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In this shocking and illuminating road trip through an America ravaged by debt, award-winning film director James Scurlock examines our multitrillion-dollar addiction to easy credit in all of its absurdities and contradictions.Maxed Out ventures beyond the mind-numbing statistics to expose a financial industry spinning wildly out of control. From the gilded master-planned communities of Northern Las Vegas to the shotgun shacks of the Deep South, the world's largest financial institutions are trolling for customers, hooking the nouveau riche and the poor alike with promises of cheap and easy credit. Maxed Out exposes how Wall Street and Congress spawned the subprime mortgage crisis and reveals how credit card issuers form multimillion-dollar partnerships with universities -- paying them millions for access to their students' personal information, setting kids up for financial ruin before their first job. The industry's final frontier, "debt buying," is a veritable Wild West in which ambitious young men make quick fortunes off the misery and misfortune of others. Hilarious, fascinating, and deeply disturbing, Maxed Out is one man's answer to modern America's most pressing question, "Why can't we get out of debt?"
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 A lot to Digest... but it sure helps a person to feel less alone! December 22, 2008
I do recommend this book, although I agree with some of the other reviewers who found it a bit overwhelming. I had to stop reading and let my head stop swimming every now and then.
It's astounding the number of manipulative tactics that credit card companies use to lure people into debt and keep them there, paying huge interest rates and sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Meanwhile, the threat of ruining their credit hangs over their heads like the legendary Sword of Damocles. It ruins lives, and the author does an excellent job of enumerating the many many ways that happens to people.
I'm happy to say that I've also read another book that offers us a more victorious resolution to this problem:
DEFAULT !!! Escaping the Debt Trap and Avoiding Bankruptcy
After reading all the dire warnings and horror stories in "Maxed Out", I was ready to enjoy an entertaining and uplifting book about people who legally defeated a huge credit card company just by doing their homework, learning how to do legal research and conducting their own legal defense.
I highly recommend both books for a complete and balanced perspective on this subject.
 MAXED OUT December 12, 2008
I ORDERED A DVD "MAXED OUT" AND RECEIVED A BOOK "MAXED OUT". I RETURNED IT FOR THE DVD AND WAS TOLD THAT I WOULD GET A REFUND IN ITS PLACE. I WANTED THE DVD! SO FAR I HAVE NOT RECEIVED A REFUND OR THE DVD. NOTHING TO GIVE A REVIEW ABOUT.
NOT HAPPY
Pretty upsetting - in a good way. November 10, 2008
((After watching this, I finally sat down and organized a budget for paying off my credit cards and I'm sticking to it very strictly!)) While the personal, anecdotal evidence causes minor weaknesses in the arguments made in this film, there is enough compelling evidence to make it quite interesting, upsetting, insightful, etc. and it was particularly intriguing to see for my first time during the economy crisis being such a decisive factor for people in the 2008 presidential election.
 Our credit-hungry society may be leading us to ruin October 12, 2008
The book ''Maxed Out'' was certainly a timely warning bell about the financial crisis that is now swamping the financial markets. But even if anyone was listening when the book was released - it's too late to change what has happened. Nonetheless it's interesting to read about the building debt crisis as it was unfolding over the last several years through the anecdotal evidence presented in the book.
Author James Scurlock surveys the whole credit, lending, and spending splurge in the U.S. and concludes that big banks, unsavory lenders, and gullible buyers created a perfect storm of debt that would one day come due. Through various stories from individuals the reader sees how lending institutions tempting people into taking high-risk loans without thinking through the consequences. And for the most part the government did not do enough to stop it.
The author tends to be sarcastic and witty, which at times makes the reading fun but eventually got to be too much for me. And while I agree with his disgust of the unsavory lending practices, he pretty much gives the individuals seeking the quick credit a free pass on their poor choices. In that respect I did not agree with the author since individuals ultimately have to be held accountable for their own choices. No one is forcing them to buy an expensive car on a meager salary!
My understanding is that the book version is a shortened edition of author James Scurlock's short film on the topic. That may explain the book's scattershot approach and meandering text. Scurlock tends to mix together stories of debt horrors with his personal views, political events, and little lessons about overextending on debt. This sometimes created tedious and/or circuitous reading. I recommend the book if reading first-hand accounts of credit horror stories interests you, but don't expect too many hard and fast facts to back up the author's opinions.
Provocative but incomplete October 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
James Spurlock is prophetic as well as provocative: his book was written (and his documentary made) back in 2005, when it seemed that the real estate market could do nothing but continue its spectacular rise, yet he preached caution about the unsustainability of real estate speculation. He blew the whistle on mortgage brokers' predatory practices long before "sub-prime lending" became a household phrase. And he closed his book by advocating sweeping reform measures to regulate the credit card industry, which is shored up by egregious fees that target the most vulnerable consumers. Several those ideas have since been considered by a Congress desperate to avoid Scurlock's predicted recession.
But the book is a mixed bag, mostly because Spurlock is so eager to place the blame on profit-driven corporations and the government with whom they share a king-sized bed that he repeatedly patronizes the little guy as a mere victim. Everyday Americans, indeed, are feeling the squeeze of being the most indebted of any generation in our history, but Scurlock would have us believe it is entirely the fault of others. It's the fault of the debt collectors, who are profiled in a frightening and sad chapter on how debt is sold and resold again. It's the fault of mortgage lenders, who have extended loans to people who never should have qualified for them. And it's the fault of credit card companies for cracking down on debtors with draconian provisos like the "universal default" fee.
Yes. I see all of that, and I think Scurlock raises important points about corporate responsibility and the government's role in protecting consumers as well as big business. But Scurlock wants us to believe that every one of the people he profiles in the book is merely a victim, even the woman who charged her Cadillac and a [...] job to the U.S. government. He holds her up as a casualty of the military's policy of expediting purchase orders by issuing credit cards to Marines. He seems to think that someone was holding a gun to her head, forcing her to charge her bar tabs and Rent-A-Center furnishings to the American people.
I agree wholeheartedly with Scurlock's condemnation of our culture of debt, such as when he points out that while cigarettes can't be advertised on TV and must come with severe warnings on the label, the credit industry--which is selling a product that, when abused, can also be damaging to one's future and well-being--has been helped every step of the way by Washington. But on the other hand, Americans need to accept their share of financial responsibility. A key proponent of debt prevention is rigorous consumer education, both at home and at school. This is something Scurlock just doesn't discuss: how parents need to teach their children about debt, credit, and money management from an early age; and how schools need to educate kids about these issues before they get into college and start getting flooded with credit card offers that seem to good to be true--and are.
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