Placeholder text

Go to cart

Land of the Fee

By Devin Fergus

Land of the Fee

By Devin Fergus

0 - Default Title
Description
The loans ordinary Americans take out to purchase homes and attend college often leave them in a sea of debt. As Devin Fergus explains in Land of the Fee, a not-insignificant portion of that debt comes in the form of predatory hidden fees attached to everyday transactions. Beginning in the 1980s, lobbyists for the financial industry helped dismantle consumer protections, resulting in surreptitious fees-often waived for those who can afford them but not for those who can't. Bluntly put, these hidden fees unfairly keep millions of Americans from their hard-earned money. Journalists and policymakers have identified the primary causes of increasing wealth inequality-fewer good working class jobs, a rise in finance-driven speculative capitalism, and a surge of tax policy decisions that benefit the ultra-rich, among others. However, they miss one commonplace but substantial contributor to the widening divide between the rich and the rest: the explosion of fees on every transaction people make in their daily lives. Land of the Fee traces the system of fees from its origins in the deregulatory wave of the late 1970s to the present. The average consumer now pays a dizzying array of charges for mortgage contracts, banking transactions, auto insurance rates, college payments, and payday loans. These fees are buried in the pages of small-print agreements that few consumers read or understand. Because these fees do not fall under usury laws, they have redistributed wealth to large corporations and their largest shareholders. By exposing this predatory and nearly invisible system of fees, Land of the Fee reshapes our understanding of wealth inequality in America.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Number of Pages:
260
Release Date:
2019-12-01
Publication Date:
2019-12-01
Publisher:
OXFORD UNIV PR
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0197502806
ISBN13:
9780197502808
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
401 g
Height:
156 cm
Width:
234 cm
Thickness:
14 cm
Buy on Amazon
Currently sold out