Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

Exposes the cumulative effect fees have on wealth redistribution from the poor and middle classes to wealthy corporations
Traces the history of fees from the deregulation era of the 1970s to the present, tracking its effect on growing inequality in the US
Argues that corporations employ "trick-and-trap" fees by hiding them in the complicated terms of agreement that accompany many consumer transactions, which effectively trick consumers into unknowingly paying exorbitant costs

Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

Description

The loans ordinary Americans take out to purchase homes and attend college often leave them in a sea of debt. As Devin Fergus explains in Land of the Fee, a not-insignificant portion of that debt comes in the form of predatory hidden fees attached to everyday transactions. Beginning in the 1980s, lobbyists for the financial industry helped dismantle consumer protections, resulting in surreptitious fees-often waived for those who can afford them but not for those who can't. Bluntly put, these hidden fees unfairly keep millions of Americans from their hard-earned money.

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.

Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. House Money: The Story of Subprime in Three Acts
2. Tax Eaters: The Origins of the Student Debt Bubble
3. Driving While Broke: How Auto Insurance Drives the Wealth Gap
4. Shadow Bankers and the Great Wage Stagnation: The Story of Payday Lending
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

Author Information

Devin Fergus is the Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professor of History, Black Studies, and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. Author of Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics (a CHOICE Outstanding Title for 2010), he has written widely on politics, policy, and inequality in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Slate.

Land of the Fee

Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class

Devin Fergus

Reviews and Awards

"The book does a good job of explaining how finance became the tail that wags the dog of Main Street. And it is a timely work, one with important lessons about the multi-decade dysfunctional dance between Wall Street and Washington that continues today." -Financial Times

"Land of the Fee offers a cogent, historically grounded account of how certain fees have emerged as stealth agents of our gaping wealth disparity." -Washington Monthly

"This book is an outstanding primary text and faculty resource for upper-division and graduate classes in public and taxation policy and financial markets, regulation, and ethics" -- CHOICE

"[P]rovides a valuable history of legislation." -Kirkus Reviews

"Devin Fergus' account of the underside of American finance reveals a world in which living by all the truisms about personal responsibility can somehow leave you poorer than ever before. The chapter on payday lending is especially striking." -Kim Phillips-Fein, New York University, and author of Fear City

"Land of the Fee is an impressive and timely examination of American inequality and of American consumers' growing financial vulnerability since the 1970s. An exceptionally compelling contributor to ongoing public debates, Fergus does a masterful job of debunking common myths about many Americans' current financial predicaments. This is an important book, and anyone with a credit card or a car note should read it!" -John L. Jackson, Jr., co-author of Impolite Conversations: On Race, Politics, Sex, Money, And Religion

"Devin Fergus takes us on a harrowing journey into the vast, unregulated world of consumer fees and hidden charges that have proliferated in recent decades. Land of the Fee is a compelling account of how--dollar by dollar--wealthy corporations have engaged in a massive transfer of wealth to themselves. Fergus makes a powerful case for the necessity of consumer protection and regulatory reform in an anti-regulation age." -Thomas J. Sugrue, New York University