Mortgage Slave

戴维·戴恩 / 叶硕Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaMay 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
271K words
Chapters
26
ISBN
9787532780310

Tags

Documentary Literature Wall StreetLivelihood StruggleFinancial CrisisRisk ControlSocial CritiqueDocumentary NarrativeOrdinary People

Summary

Few tell the story of the 2008 financial crisis from the perspective of millions of ordinary Americans, yet it was precisely these people who bore the greatest suffering from the economic collapse. For under such a system, how people are treated depends on their wealth and power. Since 2009, three ordinary Americans have set out to uncover this mystery, clarify Wall Street's crimes, and investigate the causes. They are a cancer-care nurse, a car salesman, and an expert in insurance fraud. All are foreclosure victims, commonly labeled "deadbeats" or mortgage slaves. They discovered that the entire mortgage industry had fundamentally undermined a centuries-old body of American real property law; that the millions of documents used to foreclose on people's homes were all fraudulent; and that every American with a mortgage was engaged in a high-stakes gamble—liable to be thrown out of their home with nothing, even if they followed the rules and paid on time every time. This is a major failure of public policy. We do not know how many families lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis; estimates put the figure at at least nearly 6 million. Numerous studies show that people living in foreclosure areas suffer more physical and mental illness. A 2014 report in the American Journal of Public Health found that foreclosure rates correlate with suicide numbers. The foreclosure crisis was the most damaging blow to the wealth of middle-class American families in nearly a century.

Editor's review

With a cool, unsparing pen and deep insight, The House Slave raises the curtain on a core anxiety of modern society. David Dayen does not simply tell a story about mortgages or the real estate market; he dissects the identity of the "house slave" across broader social, economic, and psychological dimensions. The book's value lies in moving beyond narratives of personal striving or financial hardship to explore how homeownership has become a modern shackle—a complex promise embedded in consumerism, social recognition, and expectations for the future. Dayen's discussion combines scholarly rigor with narrative readability; he draws on extensive historical materials, economic data, and individual cases to reveal the systemic risks and individual alienation that may lurk behind the fine vision of "a home for every family." For readers in an era of high housing prices, this book offers a mirror in which to examine our relationship with the very concept of "home"—is it a harbor, or a debt? An asset, or a dream held as collateral? Reading this book not only yields knowledge of the housing finance system but may also prompt deep reflection on freedom, security, and life choices.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Reading alongside one's own or others' home-buying experiences can highlight the book's real-world relevance
  2. There is no need to rush; pay attention to the author's chains of argument and choice of cases
  3. After reading, explore further works on socioeconomic history or urban studies to build a more three-dimensional framework of understanding

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 前言
  3. 1 止赎来敲门
  4. 2 美国梦的暗面
  5. 3 证券化失败
  6. 4 贷款发起商
  7. 5 社区
  8. 6 匿名先生
  9. 7 当迈克尔与丽莎相遇
  10. 8 欢乐时光聚会
  11. 9 人 脉
  12. 10 专 家
  13. 11 恶 行
  14. 12 博客上的革命
  15. 13 九 楼
  16. 14 塔拉集会
  17. 15 不择手段
  18. 16 垮 台
  19. 17 重要时刻
  20. 18 绳之以法
  21. 19 挣脱困境
  22. 20 最后的粉饰
  23. 21 丽莎最后的抵抗
  24. 尾 声
  25. 致 谢
  26. 注 释

FAQ

Is this book a novel or nonfiction? It is a rigorously researched work of nonfiction, belonging to the categories of social reportage and economic-social analysis, based on extensive research, interviews, and historical study.
Are the book's views too pessimistic? Does it completely reject homeownership? The author does not reject homeownership outright but critically analyzes how it has been shaped into an almost compulsory social norm and a source of latent risk. The aim is to provoke reflection, not to offer simple conclusions.
The book's context is the United States—does it have reference value for Chinese readers? Although the U.S. housing market is the primary case, the financialization, social pressure, and dilemmas of individual choice it reveals are globally relevant. Chinese readers can gain theoretical perspectives and a comparative framework for analyzing housing issues at home.

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About the author

戴维·戴恩 Author

David Dane is a Chinese-language author about whom limited public information is available. Only one of the author's works is currently included in the database: the nonfiction work House Slave. Based on the available information, Dane's writing focuses on housing, a real-world subject closely tied to ordinary people's lives, and presents the circumstances and pressures of home buyers and mortgage payers in a documentary style. The term "house slave" itself refers to people burdened by heavy mortgages against the backdrop of high housing prices, and the work revolves around this social phenomenon with a strong sense of real-world concern and observation. Because the author's nationality, dates of birth and death, educational background, and writing career are not clearly recorded, the overall profile of the author's writing is difficult to sketch in full. Yet judging from House Slave alone, Dane's choice of a documentary approach to issues of housing and debt gives the work value as a record close to everyday life and offers readers a concrete entry point for understanding related social topics.

叶硕 Author

Ye Shuo: publicly available information is limited, and no clear record has been found regarding nationality, dates of birth and death, educational background, or professional career; the author's writing can only be understood through the works held in the collection. The two existing works fall respectively into the categories of finance and documentary literature. The Truth of the Market: Why Are Some Countries Rich and Others Poor? appears from its title to address the macro issue of national wealth disparities, with an economic explanatory bent and a sense of inquiry. House Slave turns its attention to the housing pressure faced by ordinary people, with a subject close to real life. This suggests that Ye Shuo's writing spans economic issues and life documentary, often starting from real concerns of readers and linking macro institutions with individual circumstances. Although the number of works is small, the range of subjects reflects sustained attention to financial topics and social welfare, and the works may be consulted by readers interested in economic realities and documentary writing.