By host Tom Ashbrook:
Business Week magazine loves to write about American winners, about brilliant business strategies and American companies taking on the world.
This week, Business Week’s cover story has a little different flavor. Its headline is “The Poverty Business,” and it’s all about American companies zealously targeting America’s working poor as a new profit center – with sky-high interest rates and “gotcha” deals that no self-respecting middle class American would dream of taking.
The formula? Need plus desperation equals big, fat profits.
This hour On Point: How growing rich on the poor works.
Quotes from the Show:
“This is not just a business story but it is a business story.” Keith Epstein
“One thing that’s new is the size and the sophistication of the firms involved.” Paul Barrett
“We have a business and political culture in this country where a predatory greed is seen as a high aim.” Listener
“The real problem is that the financial system is not designed to serve them [low to moderate income families]. … If you look at the legal disclosures, they are extremely complicated.” Michael Barr
Guests:
Paul Barrett, Assistant Managing Editor for BusinessWeek Magazine
Keith Epstein, Co-author of the May 21, 2007 cover story “The Poverty Business”;
Steve Wedding, CFO and President of Franchising for J.D. Byrider.;
Michael Barr, Law Professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
