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Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit, by Robert D. Manning. New York: Basic Books, 2000. 406 pp. $16.50 paper. ISBN: 0-465-04367-4.
Observers have noted for some time now that consumer debt has been rising to alarming proportions. Much academic attention has focused on the crushing debt accumulated by developing countries. By contrast, very little academic notice has been made of mounting consumer reliance on high-interest plastic money and other forms of debt used to finance lifestyles beyond the reach of individuals' pocketbooks, or simply to pay for life's essentials. In Credit Card Nation, Robert Manning offers rich descriptions and insights into a wide range of credit financing, with discussions of the origins and sources of the modern debtor society and of the consequences of credit for everyone.
Manning's focus moves from naive students to retirees and from small businesses to large ones, as he demonstrates how an entire generation could have shifted from an ideology of pay as you go, cash-only born out of the insecurities...