This year, more Americans will go bankrupt than be diagnosed with cancer, graduate from college or get married. As Hurricane Katrina so vividly exposed, despite its astounding wealth and resources, America is crumbling beneath a staggering burden of individual and government debt. Maxed Out delves inside the American "debtstyle", where everything seems fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time but where everyone knows, in the words of a popular radio personality, that "something just isn't right". Hilarious, shocking and incisive, Maxed Out exposes how lenders lure consumers into crippling debts and keep them there with excessive fees and high interest rates. A shocking visit to a debt purchasing and collection agency run by two "debt pirates" reveals what happens when consumers are (inevitably) maxed out to the point of no return.