Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, the use of credit cards, which had begun as a convenience, began to grow into an addiction. Collateral Damaged: The Marketing of Consumer Debt to America explains how a nation of savers became a nation of consumers and how Wall Street used consumers' addiction to spending to create the "toxic securities" that threaten to bring about the collapse of the global economy. Geisst looks at the policy implications of the credit crisis and describes how the United States can get its fiscal house in order: Debt must be brought back onto the issuer's balance sheet. Investors must have the assurance of recourse to the debt issuer's own funds, rather than the empty promise of a valueless document. Regulators must be educated to know at least as much about financial engineering as the structured finance instruments' architects do. This book connects the dots from consumer spending to credit cards to home-equity loans and back to credit cards.

Changes in federal housing policies over the past several decades shifted the primary responsibility for providing low-income renters with affordable housing from the government to private landlords. Federal, state, and local governments have passed laws to ensure that low-income renters are protected from illicit landlording practices. Yet we know little about how private landlords experience local housing regulations. In Collateral Damages, sociologist Meredith Greif examines how local laws affect private landlords and whether tenants are, in fact, being adequately protected. For three years, Greif followed sixty private landlords serving low- and moderate-income residents in the Cleveland, Ohio, metropolitan area to better understand how local regulations, such as criminal activity nuisance ordinances (CANOs) and local water billing regulations, affect their landlording practices. CANOs are intended to protect communities by discouraging criminal activity on private properties. Property owners can face financial and criminal sanctions if they do not abate nuisance activities, which can include littering, noise, drug use, and calls for police assistance, including calls for domestic violence. Local water billing regulations hold landlords responsible for delinquent water bills, even in cases where the account is registered in the tenant’s name. Greif finds that such laws often increase landlords’ sense of “financial precarity” – the real or perceived uncertainty that their business is financially unsustainable – by holding them responsible for behavior they feel is out of their control. Feelings of financial uncertainty led some landlords to use illegitimate business practices against their tenants, including harassment, oversurveillance, poor property upkeep, and illegal evictions. And to avoid to financial penalties associated with CANOs and delinquent water bills, some landlords engage in discriminatory screening of vulnerable potential tenants who are unemployed or have histories of domestic violence or drug use. In this sense, by promoting a sense of financial insecurity among landlords, laws meant to protect renters ultimately had the opposite effect. While some landlords, particularly those who rented a larger number of units, were able to operate their businesses both lawfully and profitably, the majority could not. Greif offers practical recommendations to address the concerns of small- and mid-sized landlords, such as regular meetings that bring landlords and local authorities together to engage in constructive dialogue about local housing policy, issues, and concerns. She also proposes policy recommendations to protect renters, such as establishing the right to counsel for lower-income tenants in eviction hearings and enacting a federal renter’s tax credit. Collateral Damages is an enlightening investigation on how local laws and practices perpetuate disadvantage among marginalized populations and communities, in ways that are hidden and often unintended.

A recession is defined to be a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth.Thus: a recession is a national or world event, by definition. And statistical aberrations or one-time events can almost never create a recession; e.g. if there were to be movement of economic activity (measured or real) around Jan 1, 2000, it could create the appearance of only one quarter of negative growth. For a recession to occur the real economy must decline.

Minimization of collateral damage is an objective of the United States Air Force (USAF) whenever it conducts hostile operations. While the USAF has often expressed concern about causing collateral damage, its actions have not always reflected a consistent level of commitment. This essay explores the evolution of USAF concerns about collateral damage and examines the causes and effects of this unfortunate by-product of airpower. It concludes that the concerns harbored about causing collateral damage reduce the military effectiveness of airpower. This loss of effectiveness is not always important. For example, when a resource rich coalition conducts an air campaign against an inferior adversary, that coalition can discriminate in its application of airpower by allocating great effort to the avoidance of collateral damage. In a different context, such asymmetry may not exist. Commanders then might have to focus on achieving objectives while paying little attention to the possibility of collateral damage. In either case, collateral damage will likely occur, varying only in degree. The USAF can take actions which will help alleviate some of the causes of collateral damage. Improvements in the areas of planning and technology provide certain relief, but ultimately, political and military leaders must accept that collateral damage is an inevitable part of airpower.

"Problem-based Secured Transactions casebook"--

Written during and after the Persian Gulf War, this anthology includes original research and in-depth analysis of U.S. foreign policy and its domestic repercussions. The contributors look at the war abroad and at home, addressing race, gender, geo-politics, ecology, economics, and the movement for peace and justice.

Gilmore, Grant. Security Interests in Personal Property. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1965. Two volumes. xxxiv, 651; xiii, 653-1508 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-10258. ISBN 1-886363-81-1. Cloth. $195. * Written by the late Grant Gilmore, Co-Reporter for Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, this landmark work, often cited, is extremely well respected as an acknowledged authority in this area. Combines an engrossing account of the drafting of Article 9 as it emerged in its final form with important interpretive data relating to security interests. This title is the recipient of both the Order of the Coif and the James Barr Ames award. Now back in print and of continued relevance today.

Tracing credit from colonial times to the present and highlighting its productive role in building national prosperity, Rowena Olegario probes questions that have divided Americans: Who should have access to credit? How should creditors assess creditworthiness? How can borrowers and lenders accommodate to the risks of a credit-dependent economy?