#41 - Credit, Lending & Banking: The Predatory US Financial System with Elena Botella

In America, it is easier to lose money to banks, credit cards, and lenders than it is to earn and grow it. In this episode, author and financial sector reform activist Elena Botella explains exactly why that is and exposes the American financial system for its exploitative structures. With years of experience in the credit card industry, Elena shares her expertise in America’s unique and dangerous way of using the financial sector to transfer money from those with less to those with more. 

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Speaker Bio: Elena Botella is the author of Delinquent: Inside America's Debt Machine, forthcoming from UC Press in Fall 2022. She worked as a senior manager at Capital One, before becoming an advocate for financial sector reform. Elena has been featured in Netflix’s Money, Explained, HillTV, and The Majority Report. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Vice, The New Republic, and elsewhere.

Learn more about Elena’s work and follow her on Twitter. 

Guest Host Bio: Mia Brabham is a writer, digital personality, speaker, and content creator based in Washington DC who just published her debut book, Note to Self. In addition to her role as staff writer at Shondaland, Mia’s writing has been published in the Huffington Post, The Financial Diet, Thought Catalog, Gardy Loo Literature & Arts Magazine, and Harness Magazine. Mia has over 18,000 followers and two million video views on her YouTube channel YOURS TRULY, MIA — the home to her recent web series, Hot Mess Confessions — with a successful blog by the same name. She is also the creator of A YEAR OF LESSONS, a 365-day-blog project in which she wrote and accepted lessons every day for a year. Mia has hosted and delivered speeches in front of an assortment of crowds, from university commencements and NBA arenas filled with 20,000 sports fans to intimate TEDx events. Before embarking on her current journey as a freelance writer, designer, and entertainment host, she held positions at NBCUniversal, E! News, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, 60 Second Docs, and Smithsonian. She is a graduate of James Madison University. You can follow Mia’s life and work on Instagram (@yourstrulymia) and Twitter (@hotmessmia), or say hello at bymiabrabham.com. 

Subscribe and listen to Mia’s podcast Two in the Morning.

Listen to Mia’s interview with I Also Want Money podcast from 2020.