[.ca] Credit Card Nation (ISBN 0465043674)

From Amazon.com:
No interest for one year! No annual fee! No minimum payments for six months! And, if you want to believe Robert Manning, there's no way out of the debt that we find ourselves in, as individuals and as a country. Credit Card Nation combines debt of every kind--consumer, corporate, and governmental--and creates a vast landscape of profit-spewing lenders and struggling debtors present at every level of economics. Appalling statistics set readers off on a depressing journey: the years between 1980 and 1994 saw annual consumer charges skyrocket from $170 billion to $581 billion, with the average household carrying over $4,000 in revolving debt. Accompanied by the erasure of nearly $100 billion in corporate debt and tremendous tax cuts for ever-merging conglomerates, the end of the 20th century seems to be just the beginning of an overwhelming cycle. While Manning's book is extensively researched, it is also extremely readable. Individual stories of junk bondsmen, corporate raiders, and middle-class consumers are threaded throughout the pages of charts and statistics, with a few surprises. While most media would have us believe that students who rack up charge accounts are totally irresponsible, the reality is that some of these students are helping their families with cash-advance loans to make mortgage or insurance payments. Emphasis is also placed on the tremendous advertising budgets of credit card companies: Manning comments on "how quickly the cultural norms have changed in the Credit Card Nation," we see a poster insisting "money can't buy you love, but a credit card can get you started." This is not a self-help book, and Manning has no 12-step program for debtors at any level. Credit Card Nation simply tells it as it is. --Jill Lightner

Yawn.:
Having just finished Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation," I had high expectations for this book as well. I suppose if I were drowning in debt myself I might appreciate it more. Here are the problems: While Schlosser's book explores many issues surrounding the fast food industry, each of them has clear relevance to the central theme. Not so, alas, with Manning's book. For instance, chapter 2 seems to be mostly about corporate mergers. Chapter 3 appears to have as its central theme the fact that banks decided they wanted to make more money off credit cards. But while the fact that banks want more credit card money is relevant to the book, the reasons why they want this money, and the statistics that relate to this, are profoundly uninteresting. (Honestly, is is that hard to figure out that everybody wants more money than they have?) Fortunately, later in the book we get some personal interest material. But the people profiled in these chapters can be hard to identify with. Were those college students really too dumb to know that credit cards have interest rates? Many of them seem to insist, for instance, that credit card companies shouldn't issue twenty thousand in credit to a student who makes nine thousand a year. Perhaps they're right; but then, would they similarly insist that McDonald's shouldn't serve its high-fat food to a person who weighs four hundred pounds? Chalk up one more for the American culture of self-victimization; God forbid I should take responsibility myself for my finances. Manning's book fails where Schlosser's succeeds brilliantly: showing the human side of things. Manning does give us some anecdotes that help to show the human consequences of credit card debt; but these have to be sought out between the droning statistics. I think that with some heavy editing this could be a great book. Right now, though, much of it is simply a cure for insomnia.

Had this professor when he was researching this book:
I know Professor Manning from his days teaching class at Georgetown and American universities in DC. He was a fairly nice guy and a decent professor, with some fun arguments. My problem with this book was how selectively he researched some of the information. Not that he ignores importent sociological and economic trends, but for example I remember him polling me about my credit card spending as a college student. When I responded that I got the card as part of a through-the-mail low-interest offer when I was 18 and had successfully managed the debt and payments, he seemed uninterested, largely because my response did not fall within the paradigm supporting his book. All in all an interesting book, with some important facts, but skewed.

Comprehensive Study of Consumer Debt:
A striking and keen assessment of the credit card industry and damning expose'of corporate tactics to lure the unsuspecting and inexperienced into a life of consumerism. This comprehensive text outlines many of the megabanking tactics to increase their bottom line at the expense of the American consumer. The predatory marketing strategies and extensive profits of the credit card industry are exposed and provide the reader with information the banks do not want you to know.

Victims of credit cards or just irresponsible?:
Well, the chicken and egg question: Are we victims of credit cards infiltrating every aspect of our lives, or merely not taking responsibility? I'll admit, having been in debt until recently, I felt both at times. Of course people make their own choices. I feel you can not totally blame credit card companies for everything. However, this is a fascinating book on credit and how it has multiplied into every fabric of what we call the American Dream. Growing by leaps and bounds from the late 19th century until the present day. I saw Dr. Manning on C-SPAN 2 book world and seeing him speak made me want to buy this book. While we can't always blame others for our mistakes, isn't it time we took a look at credit card comapnies marketing techniques on college campuses? This was where I fell into my own trap. Mr.Manning explores this phenomena, which is vastly unexplored in many books, very well. He does give some dry statistics, but overall presents the history of the credit card. Let's face it, the companies would rather we be in debt. They also give so little of their funds toward charity, when doing events for charity. It is even possible very little of their money now is going towards relief efforts stemming from recent tragedy. There are those who look down at books like this (one reviwer I saw in particular), but the numbers don't lie. Credit debt keeps growing. It seems, unfortunately, that many people will still need this book. They may need it and others like it. As far as I can see, Mr. Manning has done justice towards how and why credit card comapnies market the way they do. Let the stories resonate with you. Take away something from them. They could be you, or someone you love. For having that intention, we need more writers like Mr. Manning.

Just a question of free will? NOT!:
Several reviewers here of Manning's *Credit Card Nation* take him to task for proposing sweeping regulatory reforms to get Americans out from under the stupendous national credit card debt. These regulations would include reining in the frenzy with which banks, savings and loans, and retailers offer their high-interest cards to everybody under the sun (from young students, to aged indigents, to already over-stretched middle class types). Critical reviewers argue that the regulations are unnecessary and, worse, intrusive. All we consumers need do, they say, is exercise some old-fashioned self-restraint. When the pre-approved credit card arrives in the mail, toss it into the dustbin. In the best of all possible worlds, this would be the most likely strategy. But this isn't the best of all possible worlds. The consumerist culture in which we live encourages us to spend, spend, spend. It teaches us to measure our individual worth by how many possessions we own and how much buying power we control. Marketing experts study our psychological profiles and target us. Television and radio bombard us with near nonstop ads. Television sitcoms teach us that the average family ought to have hundreds of gizmos and gadgets to make life comfortable. Individuals living in poverty who are painfully aware of the disparity between their lifestyle and the "Great American Dream" are promised as easy piece of the pie by credit card merchants. To his credit, Manning goes out of his way to document and discuss these and some of the hundreds of other ways in which our consumer culture encourages us to spend money we don't have. So it just won't do to casually say the problem will go away when we toss away the credit cards. Given the marketing saturation of everyday life, this wouldn't be an exercise of free will so much as an act of near-omnipotence. To claim that credit card debt is just the consequence of lack of personal discipline is to ignore the consumerist culture that increasingly fashions us. We should exercise more personal discipline. But we should also be increasingly aware of the high payoff for bankers and retailers if they can manipulate and encourage our addiction for buying on credit. This is a social problem, not just an individual, psychological one. Readers tempted to take an exclusive "it's a matter of personal responsibility" position might want to supplement Manning's very carefully argued book with others such as *Culture Jam* or *Affluenza*.