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Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money
Oxford University Press
February 2008
On Sale: January 29, 2008
368 pages ISBN: 0195306996 EAN: 9780195306996 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Over the last three decades, debt, bankruptcy, and home
foreclosures have risen to epidemic levels. To make matters
worse, the personal savings rate is at its lowest point
since the Great Depression. Why, in the richest nation on
earth, can't Americans hold on to our money?
Winner of the prestigious William James Book Award for
Believing in Magic and an authority on irrational behavior,
Stuart Vyse offers a unique psychological perspective on the
financial behavior of the many Americans today who find they
cannot make ends meet, illuminating the causes of our wildly
self-destructive spending habits. But unlike other authors,
he doesn't entirely blame the victim. Bringing together
fascinating studies of consumer behavior, he argues that the
mountain of debt burying so many of us is the inevitable
byproduct of America's turbo-charged economy and, in
particular, of social and technological trends that
undermine our self-control. Going Broke illuminates
everything from the rise of the credit card, to the increase
in state lotteries and casino gambling, to the expansion of
new shopping opportunities provided by toll-free numbers,
home shopping networks, big-box stores, and the Internet,
revealing how vast changes in American society over the last
30 years have greatly complicated our relationship with
money. Vyse concludes both with personal advice for the
individual who wants to achieve greater financial stability
and with pointed recommendations for economic and social
change that will help promote the financial health of all
Americans.
Engagingly written, with startling insights into modern
consumerism and with poignant human-interest stories of
people facing financial failure, Going Broke offers a
provocative new perspective on American economic behavior
that is likely to stir controversy and serious debate.
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