Broke, USA
From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. - How the Working Poor Became Big Business
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Narrated by:
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Scott Sowers
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By:
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Gary Rivlin
About this listen
For most people, the Great Crash of 2008 has meant troubling times. Not so for those in the flourishing poverty industry, for whom the economic woes spell an opportunity to expand and grow. 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. From the annual meeting of the national check cashers association in Las Vegas to a tour of the foreclosure-riddled neighborhoods of Dayton, Ohio, here is a subprime Fast Food Nation featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and memorable scenes. Rivlin profiles players like a former small-town Tennessee debt collector whose business offering cash advances to the working poor has earned him a net worth in the hundreds of millions, and legendary Wall Street dealmaker Sandy Weill, who rode a subprime loan business into control of the nation's largest bank. Rivlin parallels their stories with the tale of those committed souls fighting back against the major corporations, chain franchises, and newly hatched enterprises that fleece the country's hardworking waitresses, warehouse workers, and mall clerks.
Timely, shocking, and powerful, Broke, USA 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.
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Amazing book - I hope it changes things and mobilizes people to take action!
- By WeaverDreams on 10-20-19
By: Aaron Glantz
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Bad Paper
- Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld
- By: Jake Halpern
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Jake Halpern introduces us to a former banking executive and a former armed robber who become partners and go in quest of "paper" - the uncollected debts that are sold off by banks for pennies on the dollar. As Halpern shows, the world of consumer debt collection is a wild and unregulated shadow land, where operators may misrepresent a debtor's situation, make illegal threats, and even lay claim to debts that are not theirs to collect in the first place.
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An Examination of Bad Debts; its Buyers & Sellers
- By Darwin8u on 08-22-16
By: Jake Halpern
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Pound Foolish
- Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
- By: Helaine Olen
- Narrated by: Lyn Landon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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For the past few decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on personal finance products. As salaries have stagnated and companies have cut back on benefits, we've taken matters into our own hands, embracing the can-do attitude that if we're smart enough, we can overcome even daunting financial obstacles. But that's not true. In this meticulously reported and shocking audiobook, journalist and former financial columnist Helaine Olen goes behind the curtain of the personal finance industry to expose the myths, contradictions, and outright lies it has perpetuated.
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The dark side of my industry
- By jfoxcpacfp on 06-15-13
By: Helaine Olen
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The Fine Print
- How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind
- By: David Cay Johnston
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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David Cay Johnston has made a name for himself as the defender of the common man, calling out the rich and powerful for cheating the system at the expense of everyone else. Whether he's exposing unjust loopholes in the tax code that help the rich get richer or pointing out how powerful corporations pocket government subsidies at excessive taxpayer expense, Johnston is an eloquent town crier for justice and equality.
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A must listen if you love or hate Trump
- By Rob D on 04-19-17
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The Greatest Trade Ever
- The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History
- By: Gregory Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected - that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall. Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing. He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street. But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark. He just wasn't sure how to do it. Colleagues at investment banks scoffed at him and investors dismissed him.
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Better Books Now Available
- By David on 05-02-11
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Too Good to Be True
- The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff
- By: Erin Arvedlund
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Erin Arvedlund, the financial reporter who questioned the amazing returns of Bernie Madoff's hedge funds way back in 2001, traces the life of the infamous swindler and addresses the tough questions surrounding the collapse of his Ponzi scheme.
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Doesn't add much more that a lot of details.
- By Robert on 11-07-10
By: Erin Arvedlund
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How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune
- The Billionaire Who Wasn't
- By: Conor O'Clery
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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In 1988 Forbes magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the 23rd richest American alive. No one knew until then that he was extremely wealthy. Or was he? Born during the Depression in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney had made a fortune as co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. How he did it is one of the great untold retail stories of modern times. The greater untold story is that Feeney had in fact given away his fortune, in its totality, to endow Atlantic Philanthropies - one of the most generous and secretive philanthropic funds in the world.
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Horizons I never knew were there!
- By DTU_Garza on 08-13-17
By: Conor O'Clery
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The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for
The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.
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Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times
- By ivan on 03-01-14
By: David Hoffman
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The Zeroes
- My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Randall Lane
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Magazine entrepreneur Randall Lane had a prime seat at Wall Street's biggest greed fest. The Zeroes is a memoir about the excesses and bad behavior of an outsider who got pulled into a crazy, self-contained world.
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A very entertaining tale
- By andy on 11-03-13
By: Randall Lane
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Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
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Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
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Bought and Paid For
- The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street
- By: Charles Gasparino
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.
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Revealing and Convincing
- By Walter on 10-24-11
What listeners say about Broke, USA
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- anthony1429
- 08-30-20
Whata Eye Opener!
There is NEED for FINANCIAL LITERACY starting in elementary school that would continue through graduation!
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- Anthony
- 04-12-12
Important story. Embarrassing accents.
Would you consider the audio edition of Broke, USA to be better than the print version?
No.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Understanding the connection between big banks and payday lenders is essential to understanding the scope of the cultural, fiscal and political breakdowns of the past decade.
The book is definitely biased. The money lenders and big banks are bad guys; the class-action lawyers and activists are good guys. I'm curious both about the financial incentives of the good guys as well as the veracity of the bad guys claim that they provide fair and essential services to the working poor. The book never plays devil's advocate and it suffers for it.
The book does, however, thoroughly analyze the tactics used by title loaners, payday lenders, rent-to-own retailers and, yes, large "legitimate" banks to extract what can only be described as punitive fees from the working poor.
No matter how libertarian one's leanings, the sheer magnitude of the so-called "poverty industry" is bracing. Furthermore, the industry's combination of ego, victimhood, righteous indignation and seemingly boundless greed make it difficult to accept as the normal machinations of a completely deregulated free market.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Scott Sowers?
Will Patton, a Carolinian, is both a fantastic actor and capable of authentic Southern drawls.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
That the massive success of the poverty industry has influenced trends in "legitimate" business like car dealers, big box retailers and private real estate developers.
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- Blake
- 05-12-18
Pimping the poor
This book is eye opening especially living in urban environments I know now that certain businesses I would now never Participate
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- Wade T. Brooks
- 06-25-12
A Good Read
This book is about all the business that were built around payday loans, pawn shop loans, credit cards, bounced check fees, subprime mortgages and instant tax refunds. The author interviews numerous business owners and borrowers to get insights into how prevalent, lucrative and damaging these businesses are.
Although written to be a book of what-not-to-do it may well become a guide for those who want to make big money quickly. From the interviews it was readily apparent the market demand and margins were through the roof and a number of the now millionaires were average Joes who hung out a shingle, plowed their earning into opening more stores and made a fortune.
A good part of the book revolves around a few key figures that have been fighting the industry and the small inroads they have made against behemoth money makers that have been purchased by large multi-national banks or had successful IPOs.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Peter
- 01-13-11
Interesting book, pity about the reading
The book itself is quite good. It follows an interesting group of people, focussing on one in particular, (Martin Eeks). One especially interesting point the book brings up is that alot of the dodgy practicies that caused this whole mess really were a case of people doing things thats weren't totally wrong (ie sub-prime lending). But were clear cases of businesses in dire need of regulation for their own sake.
The reading of the actual audio is the biggest problem that the book has. For some reason, the producer decided to include accents all the way through. I can totally understand reading accented words and using their words. But entereing into wild accent swings is very hard, jarring and not at all helpful apart from being an obvious attempt to add color. I almost turned the book off when the accents began about 20 minutes in, but managed to percievier. This was a good thing to do, given it ended up being worth the time.
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Overall
- E Vil Larry
- 09-04-10
Sadly I was a part of this
Most of this has happened to me, and I was a part of the stuff. I was a business partner and VP for Tobie Mckenzie during this time. One story that Allen Jones forgot to tell, is when he got sent a little white tux sized for a 10yr, with a card saying "Yep, Boss Hogg wantabe jr" The book is a very good read/listen. It was not well received by locals who rely on Jones for business. Never bite the hand that feeds you types. I hope that Allen is exposed for the hypocrite that he is. This book could have been a novel of 5000 pages just on the crap that Allen and "Toby" would do or pull. Anyway if you are a local of Cleveland Tn, get it. If not, get it. Rivlin got all of his facts right.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Shay D.
- 03-09-19
Informative
This book describes how the poverty industry makes big money off poor people. It definitely provides good info for those trying to increase their knowledge on the practices big business use to pretty on the less fortunate.
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