1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910159026703321

Autore

Geisst Charles R.

Titolo

Loan sharks : the birth of predatory lending / / Charles R. Geisst

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Washington, District of Columbia : , : Brookings Institution Press, , 2017

©2017

ISBN

0-8157-2901-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 261 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

332.8/3097309041

Soggetti

Usury - United States - History

Consumer credit - United States - History

Finance - United States - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- A populist issue -- A venerable practice -- The states attack -- The Crash as a credit event -- The Great Depression -- Postscript.

Sommario/riassunto

Predatory lending: A problem rooted in the past that continues today. Looking for an investment return that could exceed 500 percent annually; maybe even twice that much? Private, unregulated lending to high-risk borrowers is the answer, or at least it was in the United States for much of the period from the Civil War to the onset of the early decades of the twentieth century. Newspapers called the practice #x93;loan sharking" because lenders employed the same ruthlessness as the great predators in the ocean. Slowly state and federal governments adopted laws and regulations curtailing the practice.