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

Rivlin, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061733202 ISBN 13: 9780061733208

Publisher: Harper Business, 2011

Synopsis

For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry. These mercenary entrepreneurs have taken advantage of an era of deregulation to devise high-priced products to sell to the credit-hungry working poor, including the instant tax refund and the payday loan. In the process they've created an industry larger than the casino business and have proved that pawnbrokers and check cashers, if they dream big enough, can grow very rich off those with thin wallets.

Broke, USA is Gary Rivlin's riveting report from the economic fringes. Timely, shocking, and powerful, it offers a much-needed look at why our country is in a financial mess and gives a voice to the millions of ordinary Americans left devastated in the wake of the economic collapse.

About this title

About the Author:

Gary Rivlin is the 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 been a reporter for the New York Times, Chicago Reader, and other publications, and his articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Wired, and elsewhere.

Review:

“[A] scathing, important book, Broke, USA... includes one shocking anecdote after another.” (—Joe Nocera, the New York Times)

“Mr. Rivlin brings to his subject a genuine gift for storytelling.” (—Wall Street Journal)

“Rivlin strives to portray the people behind Poverty Inc. in a fair light...but his sympathy and the reader’s steadily evaporate with his well-chosen tales of the industry’s coercive tactics and it’s leaders’ astonishing wealth....Rivlin is the consummate tour guide, quick with a memorable anecdote or telling statistic.” (—New York Times Book Review)

“An exhaustive exposé.” (—Washington Post)

“[Rivlin] offers a superb expose of the ‘poverty business’... A timely, important, and deeply disturbing look at the cycle of dept in the nation’s most vulnerable.” (—Publishers Weekly)

“[A] fascinating book.” (—Fortune)

“Gary Rivlin rivets readers.” (—Fast Company)

“[An] incisive, important new expose, Broke, USA...is enraging, but Rivlin’s work also is scrupulously fair.... [W]hat makes Broke, USA so readable is Rivlin’s skill at telling a complex story through engaging characters.” (—Cleveland Plain Dealer)

“This is a powerful analysis, detailing how the financial sector has come to its current state of crisis and including personal stories of some among the millions of working Americans who have been exploited along the way.” (—Booklist (starred review))

“To understand American finance, you need to understand Ace Cash Express as much as you need to understand Goldman Sachs. Which is why Gary Rivlin’s “Broke, USA” is a necessary companion.” (—Ezra Klein, Washington Post)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0061733202
• ISBN 13: 9780061733208
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 358