Land of the Fee Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class
Land of the Fee Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class
- ISBN 13:
9780199970162
- ISBN 10:
0199970165
- Format: Hardcover
- Copyright: 08/13/2018
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Newer Edition
Click the link below to purchase this eBook from our trusted partner, eCampus.com.
List Price $27.95 Save $5.73
Usually Ships in 24-48 Hours
We Buy This Book Back!
Free Shipping On Every Order
List Price $27.95 Save $0.98
Usually Ships in 3-5 Business Days
We Buy This Book Back!
Free Shipping On Every Order
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Extend or Purchase Your Rental at Any Time
Need to keep your rental past your due date? At any time before your due date you can extend or purchase your rental through your account.
Summary
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.