Poverty: Big Business

Surprisingly inspired by a Business Week article, Bill Moyers focused his recent edition of the Journal on the business of poverty.

For some, it seems, poverty equals opportunity. But, as one Business Week employee states in the Journal story, it’s an opportunity to exploit – both for profits, and to exploit the poor. As more and more of us join the ranks of the “poor” and become dependent on predatory lending, what will become of these high risk loans? As more and more of us take on medical debt, who will pay when we can’t? Do hospitals accept “80 cents on the dollar” by hiking up their prices so that they still can make money? Do car companies make more money off of financing than off of selling cars?

I’m afraid it might be so.

It’s worth quoting the Bible:

If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Exodus 22: 25-27 (New International Version)

It’s worth considering that the missing quality is compassion. After all, the logic of Exodus above is hard to argue with. The only reason predatory lending – which charges desperate people for their desperation – exists is greed.