Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders

Written by James D. Scurlock

Narrated by James D. Scurlock

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?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Mar 6, 2007
• ISBN: 9780743567459

James D. Scurlock

James D. Scurlock studied at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania before dropping out to pursue an entrepreneurial venture and later a documentary film career. His first film, Parents of the Year, won numerous awards and was an official selection of more than twenty-five film festivals. His first feature-length documentary, Maxed Out, explored our culture of debt and won the Special Jury Prize at South by Southwest. His first book, a companion to the award-winning documentary, was nominated for the National MS Society's "Books for a Better Life" Award. He has written, primarily about the impending (and now realized) financial crisis, for Slate, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and AARP Magazine, among others. He has also appeared on numerous programs, including Nightline, The Today Show, and CNBC’s Power Lunch. Scurlock lives in Santa Monica, California.

Reviews for Maxed Out

[schatzi_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book provides an interesting look at the credit industry. Written in 2006 and published in 2007 before the economic implosion, Scurlock sounds a warning bell that the retail-driven American economy is on shaky ground. Middle class families were (and are) drowning in debt, the poor were (and are) being targeted for credit cards, and the housing boom is threatening to peter out (which happened spectacularly). Scurlock certainly hit the nail on the head, although it seems that we, as a nation, still have not learned the hard lessons about easy credit. Instead, we still fund our nation by loans proffered by countries that are, at best, lukewarm towards us. The only real problem I had with this book was its anecdotal nature. There are few notes about sources, and most of the book is composed of stories about downtrodden Americans who have fallen into the "bear trap" and couldn't find a way out (at least a way that didn't involve suicide or homicide). Still, this is an interesting read, and it will likely have you wonder if you should really open that next solicitation from Bank of America.