Delinquent

Inside America's Debt Machine
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-0-520-38035-6
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 590 g

A consumer credit industry insider-turned-outsider explains how banks lure Americans deep into debt, and how to break the cycle.

Delinquent takes readers on a journey from Capital One’s headquarters to street corners in Detroit, kitchen tables in Sacramento, and other places where debt affects people's everyday lives. Uncovering the true costs of consumer credit to American families in addition to the benefits, investigative journalist Elena Botella—formerly an industry insider who helped set credit policy at Capital One—reveals the underhanded and often predatory ways that banks induce American borrowers into debt they can’t pay back.

Combining Botella’s insights from the banking industry, quantitative data, and research findings as well as personal stories from interviews with indebted families around the country, Delinquent provides a relatable and humane entry into understanding debt. Botella exposes the ways that bank marketing, product design, and customer management strategies exploit our common weaknesses and fantasies in how we think about money, and she also demonstrates why competition between banks has failed to make life better for Americans in debt. Delinquent asks: How can we make credit available to those who need it, responsibly and without causing harm? Looking to the future, Botella presents a thorough and incisive plan for reckoning with and reforming the industry.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Botella, Elena

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Finanzsektor & Finanzdienstleistungen Bankwirtschaft
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wirtschaftssoziologie, Arbeitssoziologie, Organisationssoziologie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Unternehmensorganisation, Corporate Responsibility Unternehmenskultur, Corporate Governance
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Finanzsektor & Finanzdienstleistungen Finanzsektor & Finanzdienstleistungen: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

A Note

PART I THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENT

1. The Time before the Debt Machine
2. How the Machine Was Built
3. The Debtor Class
4. A Broken Net

5. The Quickest Levers

PART II THE INTEREST ARGUMENT

6. Divergent

7. A Fair Deal

PART III THE FUTURE

8. The Last Frontier

9. Transformational Lending

Acknowledgments

Appendix A: About My Research Process

Appendix B: Advice for Consumers

Notes

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Elena Botella was a Senior Business Manager at Capital One, where she ran the company’s Secured Card credit card and taught credit risk management. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, Slate, American Banker, and The Nation.