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America's Changing Fringe Economy

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Part I: Chapter 1: America’s Changing Fringe Economy In Chapter 1 it goes into depth with a multiple definitions of the fringe economy and how profitable the fringe economy is. This chapter also provides information pertaining the involvement of mainstream financial institutions that would have been guessed. It talks about how 22,000 payday lenders extended more than $25 billion in short-term loans to millions of struggling households in 2004. Also it went over how 11,000 check-cashing stores alone processed 180 million checks, which would equal to about $55 Billion. With payday lenders out numbering other local stores and restaurants it is allowing them to be at every corner in low-income neighborhoods making it convenient and pushing banks out of the area. For example, straight out of the book it describes how McDonald’s has only 13,500 U.S. restaurants, Burger King has 7624, Target has 1,250 stores, Sears has 1,970, J.C. Penney has about 1,000 locations, and the entire Wal-Mart retail chain includes about 3,600 U.S. outlets. All of these combined 29,000 locations are fewer than the nation’s 33,000 check cashing and payday lenders, just two sectors of the fringe economy. Chapter 2: Why the Fringe economy is Growing In Chapter 2 the author, Karger, defines another component of the fringe economy, the customers and provides an in-depth explanation of each factors contributing to the fringe economy’s growth. Furthermore, it is said the fringe economy is growing because

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