-
Broke, USA
- From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. - How the Working Poor Became Big Business
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
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.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Free Lunch
- How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)
- By: David Cay Johnston
- Narrated by: David Cay Johnston
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new expose.
-
-
A Must Listen! Great narration!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-05-09
-
The Least of Us
- By: Sam Quinones
- Narrated by: Tom Jordan
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.
-
-
Top tier journalism and 100% honest
- By Anonymous User on 11-24-21
By: Sam Quinones
-
The Working Poor
- Invisible in America
- By: David K. Shipler
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody who works hard should be poor in America, writes Pulitzer Prize-winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.
-
-
Textbook Perfect Discussion of the Problem
- By Cynthia on 07-28-12
By: David K. Shipler
-
Chip War
- The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
- By: Chris Miller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
-
-
Great history, but could poor narration
- By Lily Wong on 10-26-22
By: Chris Miller
-
Mediocre
- The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
- By: Ijeoma Oluo
- Narrated by: Ijeoma Oluo
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through the last 150 years of American history—from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics—Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.
-
-
This was so enlightening.
- By Firewhiskey Reader on 01-07-21
By: Ijeoma Oluo
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Free Lunch
- How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)
- By: David Cay Johnston
- Narrated by: David Cay Johnston
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new expose.
-
-
A Must Listen! Great narration!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-05-09
-
The Least of Us
- By: Sam Quinones
- Narrated by: Tom Jordan
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.
-
-
Top tier journalism and 100% honest
- By Anonymous User on 11-24-21
By: Sam Quinones
-
The Working Poor
- Invisible in America
- By: David K. Shipler
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody who works hard should be poor in America, writes Pulitzer Prize-winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.
-
-
Textbook Perfect Discussion of the Problem
- By Cynthia on 07-28-12
By: David K. Shipler
-
Chip War
- The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
- By: Chris Miller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
-
-
Great history, but could poor narration
- By Lily Wong on 10-26-22
By: Chris Miller
-
Mediocre
- The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
- By: Ijeoma Oluo
- Narrated by: Ijeoma Oluo
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through the last 150 years of American history—from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics—Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.
-
-
This was so enlightening.
- By Firewhiskey Reader on 01-07-21
By: Ijeoma Oluo
-
False Alarm
- How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet
- By: Bjorn Lomborg
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong. It points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.
-
-
Stop climate change panic!
- By Wayne on 07-16-20
By: Bjorn Lomborg
-
On the Clock
- What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
- By: Emily Guendelsberger
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the Clock takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand the future of work in America - and its present. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest - and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity.
-
-
wow you need to hear this
- By Irksum Ink on 09-28-19
-
I Hate the Ivy League
- Riffs and Rants on Elite Education
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Malcolm Gladwell has long relished the opportunity to skewer the upper echelons of higher education, from the institution of U.S. News & World Report’s Best College rankings to the LSATs to the luxe Bowdoin College cafeteria. I Hate the Ivy League: Riffs and Rants on Elite Education, upends the traditional thinking around how education should work and tries to get to the bottom of why we often reward the wrong people.
-
-
Great content but don’t bother purchasing if you have heard the podcasts
- By katieKo on 10-23-22
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
The Whiteness of Wealth
- How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans - and How We Can Fix It
- By: Dorothy A. Brown
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy A. Brown became a tax lawyer to get away from race. As a young black girl growing up in the South Bronx, she’d seen how racism limited the lives of her family and neighbors. Her law school classes offered a refreshing contrast: Tax law was about numbers, and the only color that mattered was green. But when Brown sat down to prepare tax returns for her parents, she found something strange: James and Dottie Brown, a plumber and a nurse, seemed to be paying an unusually high percentage of their income in taxes. When Brown became a law professor, she set out to understand why.
-
-
Thought provoking and very accessible
- By Simone on 05-16-21
By: Dorothy A. Brown
-
Broke in America
- Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty
- By: Joanne Samuel Goldblum, Colleen Shaddox, Bomani Jones - foreword
- Narrated by: Joanne Samuel Goldblum, Colleen Shaddox, JD Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly 40 million people in the United States live below the poverty line - about $26,200 for a family of four. Low-income families and individuals are everywhere, from cities to rural communities. While poverty is commonly seen as a personal failure, or a deficiency of character or knowledge, it's actually the result of bad policy. Public policy has purposefully erected barriers that deny access to basic needs, creating a society where people can easily become trapped - not because we lack the resources to lift them out, but because we are actively choosing not to.
-
-
very left leaning
- By Bert Sloan on 09-06-22
By: Joanne Samuel Goldblum, and others
-
Trump: The Art of the Deal
- By: Donald J. Trump, Tony Schwartz
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith, Donald J. Trump
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker's art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it.
-
-
The Man Who Would be President
- By Jose on 03-20-17
By: Donald J. Trump, and others
-
The Snowball
- Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
- By: Alice Schroeder
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 36 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as "The Oracle of Omaha."
-
-
2,220 well-invested minutes!
- By BogKid on 01-07-09
By: Alice Schroeder
-
This Fight Is Our Fight
- The Battle to Save America's Middle Class
- By: Elizabeth Warren
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fiery US senator from Massachusetts and best-selling author offers a passionate, inspiring book about why our middle class is under siege and how we can win the fight to save it.
-
-
An angry rant, not that informative
- By Havi Wingfield on 05-09-17
By: Elizabeth Warren
-
A Fighting Chance
- By: Elizabeth Warren
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Warren
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher - an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but 15 years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington, DC, to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?
-
-
Zowie, Wowie!
- By Cynthia on 05-17-14
By: Elizabeth Warren
-
Buffett
- The Making of an American Capitalist
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century - an astounding net worth of $10 billion and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.
-
-
Life changer
- By Steven on 03-28-15
By: Roger Lowenstein
-
Griftopia
- Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
- By: Matt Taibbi
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history. The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class - made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding - has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms.
-
-
Razor-sharp wit cuts through the clutter
- By Mike on 11-07-10
By: Matt Taibbi
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
-
-
Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
-
Other People's Money
- Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
- By: Charles V. Bagli
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors' dollars on a single deal. In Other People's Money, Charles V. Bagli, the New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village takes listeners inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
-
-
Solid
- By BryanW on 05-22-24
By: Charles V. Bagli
-
Chain of Title
- How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud
- By: David Dayen
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history - a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: Millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.
-
-
Capital Corruption and Greed
- By Anthony Freyberg on 07-30-16
By: David Dayen
-
Glass House
- The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town
- By: Brian Alexander
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st century, and wrecked the company.
-
-
What really happened to the American Dream?
- By Bill on 05-10-17
By: Brian Alexander
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
-
The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
-
-
Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
-
-
Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
-
Other People's Money
- Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
- By: Charles V. Bagli
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors' dollars on a single deal. In Other People's Money, Charles V. Bagli, the New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village takes listeners inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
-
-
Solid
- By BryanW on 05-22-24
By: Charles V. Bagli
-
Chain of Title
- How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud
- By: David Dayen
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history - a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: Millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.
-
-
Capital Corruption and Greed
- By Anthony Freyberg on 07-30-16
By: David Dayen
-
Glass House
- The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town
- By: Brian Alexander
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st century, and wrecked the company.
-
-
What really happened to the American Dream?
- By Bill on 05-10-17
By: Brian Alexander
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
-
The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
-
-
Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
-
Good for the Money
- My Fight to Pay Back America
- By: Bob Benmosche
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability.
-
-
Worthwhile, informative, and just short of inspiring
- By Preston on 11-17-21
By: Bob Benmosche
-
Homewreckers
- How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream
- By: Aaron Glantz
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spirit of Evicted, Bait and Switch, and The Big Short, a shocking, heart-wrenching investigation into America’s housing crisis and the modern-day robber barons who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working and middle class - among them, Donald Trump and his inner circle.
-
-
Amazing book - I hope it changes things and mobilizes people to take action!
- By WeaverDreams on 10-20-19
By: Aaron Glantz
-
Bad Paper
- Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld
- By: Jake Halpern
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
An Examination of Bad Debts; its Buyers & Sellers
- By Darwin8u on 08-22-16
By: Jake Halpern
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The dark side of my industry
- By jfoxcpacfp on 06-15-13
By: Helaine Olen
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
A must listen if you love or hate Trump
- By Rob D on 04-19-17
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Better Books Now Available
- By David on 05-02-11
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Doesn't add much more that a lot of details.
- By Robert on 11-07-10
By: Erin Arvedlund
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Horizons I never knew were there!
- By DTU_Garza on 08-13-17
By: Conor O'Clery
-
The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times
- By ivan on 03-01-14
By: David Hoffman
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
A very entertaining tale
- By andy on 11-03-13
By: Randall Lane
-
Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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".
-
-
Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
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.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- anthony1429
- 08-30-20
Whata Eye Opener!
There is NEED for FINANCIAL LITERACY starting in elementary school that would continue through graduation!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 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
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 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.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!