All she was worth

Miyuki Miyabe: All she was worth, a detective story of consumer credit and identities in Japan in the early 1990's.

It's very good. In addition to the captivating story, there's a discussion about the consumer credit market, that picked up in Japan in the 1970's and became a huge industry. Partially due to lack of regulation, loan sharks could force their indebted customers into petty crime etc.

How this escalated into the Japanese bubble economy is a bit of a mystery. After all, people hardly buy houses or cars with a credit card (maybe they do nowadays). My credit card bills seem to be mainly music and travels, both through the Internet, and the credit card company's fees are moderate. Would the credit card companies urge people to go on a spending spree in order to charge 10% or higher interest rates?

But the current economic crisis has mysterious elements as well. But maybe more later in a different blog.