Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown
Edmund Andrews
New York Times financial reporter Edmund Andrews covers the sad and confusing story of an average American who was taken in by the mortgage industry and s in danger of losing his home – himself. Despite his close and continual study of the American Economy, Andrews found himself drawn into the shady world of ARM loans, flubbed financial forms and an overpriced “dream” house. Newly married with children and step-children, Andrews dreamed of providing his new family a lovely home. However, the real estate boom was at its maddest. Partnered with a wily and unscrupulous realtor, Andrews signs up for a mortgage that bore no relation to his...
Call of the Mall
Paco Underhill
What is wrong with the mall? Well, everything, according to consumer behavior specialist Underhill. And, he adds, the rise and fall of the mall has been almost entirely avoidable. Going through a standard mall visit, Underhill points out the numerous ways malls fail to satisfy the consumer. From the architecturally blank outer walls, lack of coat and package check, unreadable maps, terrible merchandise displays and bathrooms hidden down murky hallways, the average mall is designed almost on purpose to irritate the consumer. Why aren’t clothes shown on angled racks so you can see everything? Why isn’t there anything to eat that isn’t...
Maxed Out
James Scurlock
Wowza, talk about a 21st century Cassandra! Written as a companion to his movie, Maxed Out, Scurlock includes the stories and data too complex for the big screen. Published in 2007 the book was written in ’05 and ’06. Scurlock saw the storm clouds of predatory lending, easy credit and bankruptcy gathering. His interviews are often sickening. People with mental retardation being coerced into signing up for credit cards, then losing their city-provided housing; out-of-control spending hidden from the families and ending with suicide; collection agencies and their tactics. It is all here. Scurlock interviews those being beaten down by heir...
Green With Envy: A Whole New Way to Look at Financial (un)Happiness. Why Keeping up with the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt
Green With Envy: A Whole New Way to Look at Financial (un)Happiness. Why Keeping up with the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt – Shira Boss
Not to flog a dead horse or anything… Green with Envy was quoted in House Lust, so I couldn’t resist reading this book too. Boss starts her book with her personal story. She and her unemployed husband worry over bills and try to subsist in New York on her single income. New neighbors move in and the apartment scuttlebutt tells them they paid cash for their new digs. Boss jealously eyes her new neighbors’ piles of deliveries from Barneys and seethes with envy as they mention they are heading upstate to “antique” for...
House Lust: America’s Obsession with Our Homes
Daniel McGinn
Boy howdy what a timely book! As the prices of houses plummet and loans are near-impossible to attain, this book makes it crystal clear where it all went wrong. Actually, House Lust author McGinn makes the claim that he will do nothing of the sort in his book. While there is little mention of the current financial mess we are currently mired in, it is oh so clear how we got here.
Greed, pure and simple, is what has driven our economy into a pit. Not just greed from the no-money-down banks but house owners’ lust for marble counter tops, brand-new houses and bigger, wider, deeper living rooms for their bigger, wider and narrower tvs.
McGinn, a...
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke
Suze Orman
A short and sweet book on not being horribly broke for the rest of your life, with very nice real life common sense advice. Most of her advice was the usual “pay off credit cards and save for retirement” stuff, but Orman did have some interesting ideas of financing education with credit instead of student loans and other rather radical idea. A good comfort book if you are feeling poor and the future is not looking so bright that you need to wear sunglasses.