Usury
(see also Consumer Defense)
Basics
On the Web: Articles
Tax Refund Impatience Can Carry a High Price. Jay MacDonald, Bank Rate (2/26/04).
Payday Loans = Costly Cash. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Alert (2/00).
On the Web: Specialized Sites
Center for Responsible Lending. How to spot predatory lenders before you borrow.
In the Library: Articles
Hudson, Michael. "Banking on poverty," Mother Jones (1-2/02). Big banks urging high-interest loans upon low-income customers.
In the Library: Non-Fiction Books
Bird, Edward J.; Paul A. Hagstrom & Robert Wild. Credit Cards & the Poor (Madison: U. of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty, 1997).
Draut, Tamara. Borrowing to Make Ends Meet: The Growth of Credit Card Debt in the 90s (NY: Demos, 2003).
Jones, Norman. God & the Moneylenders: Usury & Law in Early Modern England (NY: Blackwell, 1989).
Klein, Lloyd. It's In the Cards: Consumer Credit & the American Experience (Westport CT: Praeger, 1997).
Lord, Richard. American Nightmare: Predatory Lending & the Foreclosure of the American Dream (Monroe ME: Common Courage, 2006).
Mark, Jeffery. The Modern Idolatry, Being an Analysis of Usury & the Pathology of Debt (London: Chatto & Windus, 1934).
Ritzer, George. Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption: Fast Food, Credit Cards & Casinos (Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, 2001).