Are you a slave to your credit card company? For your sake, I hope not. We're all familiar with the temptation to buy that iPod we've always wanted or the stereo equipment that would make our stereo sound just the way we wanted, but if using the credit card to pay for these items means paying 20% interest on a sizable balance for a lengthy period of time, you're probably better off resisting. To make matters even worse, credit card companies are always sending out letters enticing us to start up a new credit card even if we already have one.

Well, if you'd like to be scared straight into never carrying a sizable balance on your credit cards again, then have I got the book for you: Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders by James D. Scurlock. Maxed Out takes the reader on a road trip that is both amusing and frightening. From Las Vegas to the Bible Belt to the backwoods of the inner cities, Scurlock takes you where the world's largest financial giants "troll for their next victims." Exposing real, potentially disastrous systems which support the flood of easy credit, Scurlock will make you think twice about slapping down some plastic when you head to the mall.

You can find the Maxed Out on display in the new business books section.

Recommended Websites on the topic:
Center for Responsible Lending, http://www.responsiblelending.org/issues/credit/
The Truth About Credit, http://www.truthaboutcredit.org/
Consumer Action (CA), http://www.consumer-action.org/

Magazine Articles available in EBSCO database for FREE!!!!
"Dragged Down by Debt" by Jane Quinn, in Newsweek, 5/7/2007, p49.