Up to Our Eyeballs: The Hidden Truths and Consequences of Debt in Today's America (Hardcover)

~ James Lardner (Author), Jose Garcia (Author), Cindy Zeldin (Author), Tamara Draut (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A groundbreaking book that debunks the notion that Americans' personal indebtedness results from profligacy and offers startling analysis and realistic solutions.

"For the first time ever recorded, Americans owe more money than they make. Household debt levels have now surpassed household income by more than 8 percent."—Newsweek, August 8, 2006

At a time when Americans owe close to $800 billion in credit card debt, the myth is that credit cards are primarily financing America's luxury lifestyles—helping white suburban families pay the costs attached to extravagant homes, luxury cars, and golf club memberships—or helping those who aspire to these lifestyles. Up to Our Eyeballs reveals the disturbing reality that credit cards are in fact the new "safety net," being used by desperate middle- and low-income families to manage essential expenses.

In the increasingly volatile American economy, where a decline in work-related benefits like health insurance and pensions has accompanied a rising cost of living and increased job instability, consumer debt has become a fact of life for many American families. Up to Our Eyeballs is a troubling examination of the causes and consequences of this explosive rise in consumer debt.

Including a critical look at how the financial industry became the aggressive, hyper-profitable industry it is today, this book also incorporates solutions that will be of real relief to struggling households.

About the Author

Jose Garcia is a senior research and policy associate at Demos with over ten years of experience working on civil rights, census advocacy, and socio-demographic analysis. James Lardner is a Senior Fellow at Demos. As a journalist, he has written for the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post, among other publications. Cindy Zeldin was the Federal Affairs Coordinator for the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Health Services Research & Health Policy at Emory University. Tamara Draut is director of the Demos Economic Opportunity Program. She is the author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: New Press (March 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595582118
• ISBN-13: 978-1595582119
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #399,096 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent look at current American indebtedness, December 4, 2008

By	Thomas W. Sulcer (Summit, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found Up To Your Eyeballs to be a fair, mostly non-partisan, balanced look at our broken financial system. The authors show how credit cards and debt have become the new safety net for middle class Americans. Regulation of credit card firms has been practically non-existent, and they expose how federal regulators have let credit card hawkers get away with a slew of tricks and traps that lure unsuspecting Americans into a perpetual pit of debt. The poor, the sick, the most vulnerable elements of our society get hurt the most.

And it confirms my own experience. I hate MasterCard. They send periodic letters changing the terms of the agreement with such tiny print that I feel exhausted even looking at it. I'm afraid to miss one payment lest they boost the interest rate to something stratospheric. They've kept upping the late fees, and shortening the window of time when payment is due. And I have no control over their rules. They're not honest. They're shady, conspiratorial, hiding in fine print and tricks and traps. It's a mean game they play and I hope I don't get caught up in their net, but it's possible, and I see every sign that the US government has been complicit in the shadiness. But, everybody needs a credit card these days, so I can't slice it up and put it in the garbage.

A big point the authors make is exposing the myth that Americans rack up excessive debt by being greedy and selfish and blinded by consumerism. The truth is that most cases of indebtedness come from the removal of the safety net, such as sickness, divorce, job loss, higher college payments. The mortgage industry, running rampant, encouraged people to buy more housing than they needed with teaser loans and fraudulent loan terms and sleazy hard-to-explain plans like balloon payments, and this worsened the crisis. Throughout, federal government, which has taken it upon itself to be the main economic regulator, was "asleep at the switch" as they rightly point out.

Where I disagree with the authors, however, is with their prescriptions of how to fix the system. They offer a reasonable-sounding Democratic agenda with some helpful policy prescriptions that stand a good chance of being enacted given the recent election of a Democratic president, such as more transparent regulation and a neutral regulatory authority. Still, I feel the problems with America are much deeper than the authors point out -- the political process is broken -- and in my view, the debt crisis is only one symptom of a more serious problem. Other symptoms include rampant partisanship, corruption in Washington, dangerous concentration of power in Washington in the presidency, gridlock, a politicized Supreme Court, rigged re-election rules, gerrymandering, money running everything. The government is unable to confront serious potential dangers such as nuclear terrorism; I offer a solution in my book Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism (available on Amazon & Kindle). But before any of these serious issues can be confronted, we have to restore democracy, and this requires a Second Constitutional Convention which I am summoning as a private citizen to convene in Philadelphia, beginning July 4, 2009.

I highly recommend this book. It is well written and clear. It's an intelligent look at an important part of the problem. But Americans should wake up to real danger and act before it's too late.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Skip straight to the policy recommendations, May 15, 2008

By	Reviewer_Dad - See all my reviews

This book is extremely ideological - anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, etc. Given the authors' affiliations (Demos - a far left think tank), this is not surprising. The points/arguments advanced throughout the book are one sided and the only time the authors discuss the personal responsibility of individuals for their own debt levels is to excuse it and explain it away.

In contrast, the policy recommendations are (for the most part) quite reasonable and are not terribly ideological. Rather than buying this book, I recommend checking it out from your local library and skipping straight to the chapter on policy recommendations. The chapter on the history of credit is also worth a read.