The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes the predatory lending practices that exploit the financially vulnerable.
In this quote, Barbara Ehrenreich draws a stark comparison between contemporary lenders, particularly those targeting low-income individuals, and traditional loan sharks. She highlights how these financial institutions impose exorbitant interest rates, thereby perpetuating a cycle of debt that disproportionately affects the poor, ultimately questioning the morality of such practices in our economic system.
Themes
LendersInterest RatesPovertyDebtPredatory Lending
In practice
Example use cases
During a financial literacy workshop, discussing the dangers of payday loans.
More from Barbara Ehrenreich
All quotes βThe secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The truth is, many things are worth doing only in the most slovenly, halfhearted fashion possible, and many other things are not worth doing at all.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8,000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?
Barbara EhrenreichRead
I would never call myself a cancer survivor because I think it devalues those who do not survive. There's this whole mythology that people bravely battle their cancer and then they become survivors. Well, the ones who don't survive may be just as brave, you know, just as courageous, wonderful people.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Similar quotes
Customers often value a good more when its price goes up. One reason may be its signaling value. An expensive handcrafted mechanical watch may tell time no more accurately than a cheap quartz model; but, because few people can afford one, buying it signals that the owner is rich.
Raghuram RajanRead
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.
Noam ChomskyRead
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
Ben BernankeRead
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
Henry FordRead
If Europe today accounts for just over 7 per cent of the world's population, produces around 25 per cent of global GDP and has to finance 50 per cent of global social spending, then it's obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and way of life.
Angela MerkelRead