Interesting Personal Debt News Links (March 24, 2009)

* Homicide case opened, closed in a week (The Advocate)

NEWARK — The death of a 60-year-old woman in fall 2008 was ruled a homicide and cleared, all last week, according to the Licking County Coroner’s Office and Newark police.

* Be careful if they try to sell you loan protection (Charlie Weston, The Irish Independent)

THE recession and the surge in layoffs has provided fertile ground for lenders to prey on workers’ fears by attempting to flog them expensive payment protection insurance on personal loans.

* Wall Street’s Economic Crimes Against Humanity (BusinessWeek)

Wall Street’s Economic Crimes Against Humanity By refusing to consider the consequences of their actions, those who created the financial crisis exemplify the banality of evil, writes Shoshana Zuboff

* It’s not us, it’s THEM (Dallas Morning News)

As the financial crisis has evolved its moral has been simplified, grotesquely. In the beginning this crisis was messy. Wall Street financiers behaved horribly but so did ordinary Americans. Millions of people borrowed money they shouldn’t have borrowed and, not, typically, because they were duped or defrauded but because they were covetous and greedy: they wanted to own stuff they hadn’t earne…

* U.S. economy and The More Things Change (Dallas Morning News)

On the recommendation of colleague and fellow history geek Dave Flick, I’m reading (via Kindle, which makes it extra-geeky) What Hath God Wrought , David Walker Howe’s compelling examination of early 19th Century America.