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How Consumer Credit and Debt Work

Author: Laura La Bella

Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc

Published: 2012-07-01

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13: 1448867916

In the popular mind, the Great Recession was caused by misguided investment banking practices, a burst real estate bubble, and plummeting housing values. All of this is accurate, yet it fails to highlight another underlying, insidious cause of the economic collapseconsumer credit and debt. In the years running up to the recession, consumers were encouraged by the government to spend their money for the good of the economy. The value of saving was de-emphasized, as credit card companies and banks made access to credit easier and easier. As a result, people who were not truly able to afford big purchases were nevertheless taking out loans and wracking up huge credit card bills to buy cars, boats, homes, and even second homes. Eventually, the bills came due, and Americans were suddenly in massive debt, owing huge sums of money on devalued properties, defaulting on loans, losing their credit ratings, having their homes foreclosed on and their possessions repossessed. Readers will review the nightmare scenario that resulted in the Great Recession and prolonged the agony of it. Most importantly, the mechanisms of consumer credit and debt, its pitfalls, and smart ways to manage credit and debt effectively in order to make it work for you, not against you are explained. Readers are encouraged to participate in discussion and learn how they can avoid debt with 10 Great Questions to Ask an Economics/Finance teacher and Myths & Facts.

Consumer Credit and the American Economy

Author: Thomas A. Durkin

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 737

ISBN-13: 0195169921

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Consumer Credit and the American Economy examines the economics, behavioral science, sociology, history, institutions, law, and regulation of consumer credit in the United States. After discussing the origins and various kinds of consumer credit available in today's marketplace, this book reviews at some length the long run growth of consumer credit to explore the widely held belief that somehow consumer credit has risen "too fast for too long." It then turns to demand and supply with chapters discussing neoclassical theories of demand, new behavioral economics, and evidence on production costs and why consumer credit might seem expensive compared to some other kinds of credit like government finance. This discussion includes review of the economics of risk management and funding sources, as well discussion of the economic theory of why some people might be limited in their credit search, the phenomenon of credit rationing. This examination includes review of issues of risk management through mathematical methods of borrower screening known as credit scoring and financial market sources of funding for offerings of consumer credit. The book then discusses technological change in credit granting. It examines how modern automated information systems called credit reporting agencies, or more popularly "credit bureaus," reduce the costs of information acquisition and permit greater credit availability at less cost. This discussion is followed by examination of the logical offspring of technology, the ubiquitous credit card that permits consumers access to both payments and credit services worldwide virtually instantly. After a chapter on institutions that have arisen to supply credit to individuals for whom mainstream credit is often unavailable, including "payday loans" and other small dollar sources of loans, discussion turns to legal structure and the regulation of consumer credit. There are separate chapters on the theories behind the two main thrusts of federal regulation to this point, fairness for all and financial disclosure. Following these chapters, there is another on state regulation that has long focused on marketplace access and pricing. Before a final concluding chapter, another chapter focuses on two noncredit marketplace products that are closely related to credit. The first of them, debt protection including credit insurance and other forms of credit protection, is economically a complement. The second product, consumer leasing, is a substitute for credit use in many situations, especially involving acquisition of automobiles. This chapter is followed by a full review of consumer bankruptcy, what happens in the worst of cases when consumers find themselves unable to repay their loans. Because of the importance of consumer credit in consumers' financial affairs, the intended audience includes anyone interested in these issues, not only specialists who spend much of their time focused on them. For this reason, the authors have carefully avoided academic jargon and the mathematics that is the modern language of economics. It also examines the psychological, sociological, historical, and especially legal traditions that go into fully understanding what has led to the demand for consumer credit and to what the markets and institutions that provide these products have become today.

Consumer Credit, Debt and Bankruptcy

Author: Johanna Niemi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2009-07-15

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 1847315224

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After a long period of prosperity and steady economic growth, the world's leading economies are now in crisis, and although there will be debate about its origins, the scale and seriousness of the crisis is in no doubt. There is also no doubt that excessive amounts of consumer credit, allied to a weak understanding of how globalised credit markets might react to a crisis, have played a significant part. This book, which is primarily about credit, debt and the trouble they have led to, is written by authors who have specialised in researching into over-indebtedness, that is, situations in which an individual's debt burden has become overwhelming. For these authors the plight of individuals is a primary concern, but the wider issue is how credit is used and how it changes societies. The essays in this volume, addressing topics which are fundamental to our understanding of the current crisis, range widely across the whole sector of consumer finance, including mortgages, 'credit-binges', the regulation of consumer lending, insolvency, repayment plans, debt counselling and much more besides. The conclusions drawn from the book are equally wide-ranging, but above all the lesson learned from these essays is that the financialisation of contemporary life ensures that issues of the appropriate role of credit remain of critical importance in society.

Household Credit Usage

Author: B. W. Ambrose

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-10-29

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0230608914

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In response to growing interest in household finance, this collection of essays with a foreword by John Y. Campbell, studies household and consumer use of credit instruments. It shows how individual consumers and households utilize various credit alternatives in managing their consumption and savings and suggests areas for future research.

Financing the American Consumer

Author: United States. National Business Council for Consumer Affairs. Sub-Council on Credit and Related Terms of Sale

Publisher:

Published: 1972

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13:

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Lived Economies of Default

Author: Joe Deville

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-02-11

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1134087713

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Consumer credit borrowing – using credit cards, store cards and personal loans – is an important and routine part of many of our lives. But what happens when these everyday forms of borrowing go ‘bad’, when people start to default on their loans and when they cannot, or will not, repay? It is this poorly understood, controversial, but central part of both the consumer credit industry and the lived experiences of an increasing number of people that this book explores. Drawing on research from the interior of the debt collections industry, as well as debtors' own accounts and historical research into technologies of lending and collection, it examines precisely how this ever more sophisticated, globally connected market functions. It focuses on the highly intimate techniques used to try and recoup defaulting debts from borrowers, as well as on the collection industry’s relationship with lenders. Joe Deville follows a journey of default, from debtors’ borrowing practices, to the intrusion of collections technologies into their homes and everyday lives, to the collections organisation, to attempts by debtors to seek outside help. In the process he shows how to understand this particular market, we need to understand the central role played within it by emotion and affect. By opening up for scrutiny an area of the economy which is often hidden from view, this book makes a major contribution both to understanding the relationship between emotion and calculation in markets and the role of consumer credit in our societies and economies. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers in a range of fields, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, economics and social psychology.

Drop Debt

Author: Harvey Warren

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group

Published: 2011-09

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1608322726

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As the former president of the National Consumer Council, Warren has helped thousands of families find relief from crippling debt. Drop Debt is a continuation of his work, aimed at rescuing the millions of potential readers who are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. This no-holds-barred examination of the American debt crisis reveals the inner workings of the personal debt industry, while presenting lessons and action plans for readers who want to reclaim a debt-free life. Readers will find relief in understanding that they are not alone in struggling with their financial problems.With powerful first-person testimonies, well-researched background material, and a conversational yet authoritative tone, the book provides readers with the confidence and the skills they need to overcome the shame of debt, take control of their finances, and live a comfortable life well in the black.

Real World Economics

Author: Various

Publisher: Rosen Classroom

Published: 2012-07-01

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 9781448867967

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Looks at a variety of topics in economics and finance, from family budgets, spending, and credit to international governing councils, venture capital, and financial fraud.

Financing the American Dream

Author: Lendol Calder

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1400822831

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Once there was a golden age of American thrift, when citizens lived sensibly within their means and worked hard to stay out of debt. The growing availability of credit in this century, however, has brought those days to an end--undermining traditional moral virtues such as prudence, diligence, and the delay of gratification while encouraging reckless consumerism. Or so we commonly believe. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Lendol Calder shows that this conception of the past is in fact a myth. Calder presents the first book-length social and cultural history of the rise of consumer credit in America. He focuses on the years between 1890 and 1940, when the legal, institutional, and moral bases of today's consumer credit were established, and in an epilogue takes the story up to the present. He draws on a wide variety of sources--including personal diaries and letters, government and business records, newspapers, advertisements, movies, and the words of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and P. T. Barnum--to show that debt has always been with us. He vigorously challenges the idea that consumer credit has eroded traditional values. Instead, he argues, monthly payments have imposed strict, externally reinforced disciplines on consumers, making the culture of consumption less a playground for hedonists than an extension of what Max Weber called the "iron cage" of disciplined rationality and hard work. Throughout, Calder keeps in clear view the human face of credit relations. He re-creates the Dickensian world of nineteenth-century pawnbrokers, takes us into the dingy backstairs offices of loan sharks, into small-town shops and New York department stores, and explains who resorted to which types of credit and why. He also traces the evolving moral status of consumer credit, showing how it changed from a widespread but morally dubious practice into an almost universal and generally accepted practice by World War II. Combining clear, rigorous arguments with a colorful, narrative style, Financing the American Dream will attract a wide range of academic and general readers and change how we understand one of the most important and overlooked aspects of American social and economic life.

Credit and Debt in an Unequal Society

Author: Jürgen Schraten

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2020-02-03

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1789206391

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South Africa was one of the first countries in the Global South that established a financialized consumer credit market. This market consolidates rather than alleviates the extreme social inequality within a country. This book investigates the political reasons for adopting an allegedly self-regulating market despite its disastrous effects and identifies the colonialist ideas of property rights as a mainstay of the existing social order. The book addresses sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and legal scholars interested in the interaction of economy and law in contemporary market societies.