Down, But Not Out America’s Revolt Against Being ‘Written Off’! # 25: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. – How the Working Poor Became Big Business

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The working poor are big business in this country. No less than seven publicly-traded companies are in the payday lending business and six are in the check cashing business—or seven if you include Wal-Mart, which started cashing checks for a fee a few years back. Rent-to-own, pawnshops, subprime auto lenders—that’s just a few of the other multibillion dollar players that make up what Gary Rivlin, in his book Broke, USA, dubs “Poverty, Inc.” Yet somehow, despite its size and the millions of people they count as customers, these businesses manage to operate largely under the radar. Rivlin’s book places a critical spotlight on what he calls the “pioneers of subprime,” a group as venal as the most heartless hedge fund manager. Broke, USA details the “systematic, widespread economic abuse of the poor by supposedly respectable
corporations.”

Gary Rivlin is the award-winning author of Fire on the Prairie; Drive By (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and The Plot to Get Bill Gates. A two-time Gerald Loeb Award winner, he has worked as a writer and reporter for the New York Times, Industry Standard, East Bay Express, and the Chicago Reader. He is presently reporting for The Daily Beast and writes incisive articles for Newsweek.

To Know More About Gary Rivlin

Website:

www.GaryRivlin.com

grivlin@mindspring.com

Review – WSJ and CNN Money Reviews: http://on.wsj.com/cilS4l – http://bit.ly/atmu5P

Check out his book on Amazon