Summary
This is the first full-fledged book concerning the issue of
predatory lending. It's a one-two punch: a novel and an activists' guide.
The novel, "Predatory Bender: America in the Aughts," is grounded
in the field of high interest rate consumer lending in the South Bronx.
Protagonist Jack Bender has been a loyal loan shark for the esteemed
EmpiBank. A loan-gone-bad, his ex-wife and daughter and the slow emergence
of a conscience complicate things for him.
As the story unfolds, it encompasses a Wall Street Journal-then-
New York Post reporter, a stock analyst and arbitrageur, a
storefront plaintiffs' lawyer, hungry for a contingency fee, and, last but
far from least, the customers. Milagros Guzman, for example: she has a
high-interest rate mortgage from EmpiFinancial, which she barely keeps up
with from her wages working as a maid at the attorney general's house in
Riverdale. There, she overhears negotiations between her employer and an
EmpiBank executive who was recently hired, laterally, from the federal
government. Through the revolving door the story moves, through a trial
and out on the road, as predatory lending goes international.
Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Inner
City
The 100-page non-fiction afterword describes how consumers get
taken advantage of, how they can protect themselves and how the lower
depths of the lending field and their Wall Street enablers can and should
be brought to justice.
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Sample Chapters
Author
Matthew Lee
is a public interest lawyer, growing out of community-controlled housing
battles in the South Bronx of New York City stretching back to 1987. He
has published analysis pieces in New York Newsday, American
Banker, City Limits and elsewhere. He has been involved in
seeking accountability from banks and other corporations since the early
1990s, and now does this work globally through the
Fair Finance Watch and its
Human Rights Enforcement
project.
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Sample Chapters
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Sample Chapters
