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 “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, but organized crime continued to operate much of the business. In the end, lending to high-margin investors contributed directly to the Wall Street crash of 1929. Loan Sharks is the first history of predatory lending in the United States. It traces the origins of modern consumer lending to such older practices as salary buying and hidden interest charges. Yet, as Geisst shows, no-holds barred loan sharking is not a thing of the past. Many current lending practices employed today by credit card companies, payday lenders, and providers of consumer loans would have been easily recognizable at the end of the nineteenth century. Geisst demonstrates the still prevalent custom of lenders charging high interest rates, especially to risky borrowers, despite attempts to control the practice by individual states. Usury and loan sharking have not disappeared a century and a half after the predatory practices first raised public concern.

Benita Epstein's cartoons have been making librarians laugh at themselves and their work for more than five years. Her style has amused readers in over 130 publications, from Punch to The Saturday Evening Post. This collection of 114 cartoons is in four parts: "Inside the Library," "Outside the Library," "Technology" and "Writers, Scholars and Artists": In each, your funny bone is sure to be tickled and your professional sensibilities tweaked.

Before the publication of the first edition of my book Loan Sharks I heard some very well meaning criticisms of my work, along the lines of the following: we realise that payday lending is bad but it is only a symptom, not a cause, of the economic crisis we find ourselves in today - therefore should we not focus our attention on taking down the whole system which has allowed this type of industry to proliferate? However we still need to account for why it is that predatory lenders have profited so much off the back of the financially vulnerable, and hold companies to account for their codes of conduct... Banks fall over themselves to lend to rich customers who promise large glittering deposits and low risks. They tempt them with sweet deals and low rates. The less well-off are treated very differently. Many at the bottom are denied credit from mainstream lenders, or forced to pay higher premiums. In the wake of the financial crisis, more of us are slipping into this category. We are compelled to find credit elsewhere. Payday loans are therefore on the rise.

In this intriguing and accessible book, Mayer presents the history of payday lending using the colorful (and sometimes criminal) city of Chicago as a case in point. With an eye to the future, Mayer also aptly assesses the consequences of high-interest lending - both for the people who borrow at such steep prices and for society as a whole.-publisher description.

A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE"Perversely hot, gritty, and richly textured, Valentina and Gabriel's story is one of the best dark romances I've read." -- Anna Zaires, New York Times bestselling author of Twist MeI'm a loan shark. Breaking people is in my blood. The Haynes's were supposed to be a straightforward job. Go in and pull the trigger twice. One bullet for Charlie, one for his sister. But when I saw Valentina, I wanted her. Only, in our world, those who owe us don't get second chances. No way in hell will my mother let her live. So I devised a plan to keep her.It's depraved.It's immoral.It's dubious.It's perfect.Just like her.

Repulsiveness personified, that's me. I own a mirror, and I'm not afraid to look in it. What you see on the surface is a reflection of what runs under my skin. I'm a loan shark. Breaking people is in my blood. The Haynes's were supposed to be a straightforward job. Go in and pull the trigger twice. One bullet for Charlie, one for his sister. But when I saw Valentina, I wanted her. Only, in our world, those who owe us don't get second chances. No way in hell will my mother let her live. So I devised a plan to keep her.It's depraved.It's immoral.It's dubious.It's perfect.Just like her.(DUBIOUS is the first full-length novel in a two-part duet and ends on a cliffhanger. The second book, CONSENT, will be available on 14 November 2017. This is a dark romance with a criminal anti-hero and forced seduction. Reader discretion is advised.)