Broke, USA
From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.-How the Working Poor Became Big Business

Rivlin has pulled together a lot on information on several types of enterprises that exist to exploit the poor people of our country. Although pawnshops are noted in the sub-head, they receive little attention. Of far greater concern here are check cashing stores, (tax) Return Anticipation Loans, or......more

Given the plethora of books with lofty top-down stories about the 2007 - 2008 financial crash, this book comes as a welcome reality check. It's a ripping yarn of greed, injustice, debt slavery, white knights and dark knaves... without, so far, a happy ending. Rather than focusing on the glamorous bo......more

This book is a compelling account of the subprime mortgage lenders, payday-advance outfits, check-cashers, rapid-refund tax preparers and other multibillion-dollar industries that comprise what the author calls “Poverty, Inc.” (which would have been a more fitting title). But Broke, USA doesn't real......more

May be a bit much, but you can chase the book with Michael Moore's film, Capitalism.......more

The info in this book deserve 4 stars, but my oh my it was such a dry read that I had to give it 3 stars. It would have been juicier if the stories ahd been about the people caught in the web of sub-prime and pay-day lending, but it was mostly about the actual industries. The people who run these bus......more