If you don't already hate banks, credit card companies, and the government, you need to read this book. Written to accompany the recently-released documentary Maxed Out, James D. Scurlock provides an in-depth look at everything that is wrong with the financial industry today, and how it's affecting ordinary Americans.

Scurlock begins his journey in Las Vegas where he speaks with personal finance guru/anti-debt crusader David Ramsey, and goes on to describe meetings with a family who lost a loved one to credit-related suicide, a young man who killed his family over credit card debt, a wealthy Las Vegas Realtor capitalizing on the appetite for big houses and bigger mortgages, and numerous other stories of real-life credit card chaos.

The book focuses on the industry of predatory lending which, we quickly come to learn, has become the industry of choice for banks and other lenders: They've discovered that it is a lot easier to get rich lending money to people who can't afford it. Credit card users who pay off their balance each month are labeled dead-beats. Scurlock quotes a Vice President at MasterCard who provides his definition of a preferred customer: ...an individual who has a 'taste for credit,' i.e., someone 'willing to make minimum monthly payments - forever.' The effects of predatory lending are also evident in the collapses of some of the large subprime mortgage lenders like NovaStar Financial, Inc. (NYSE: NFI), which fell from a 52-week high of $38.49 to its current price of $5.34.