Category: Poverty

.
Post Featured Image APF Icon

The Costly “Banks” That Welcome The Poor

Ask Jack Daugherty how many pawn shops he owns in the United States, and he has to put down the phone for a minute to check. “It’s kinda a moving target,” he apologizes. “I have to ask somebody every week.” The correct answer: 225. For

Rent America is one of the several rent-to-own stores in Roanoke, Virginia. Photo by APF Fellow Michael Hudson

“Rent-to-Own”: The Slick Cousin of Paying on Time

Some people call Larry Sutton “The Reverend of Rent To-Own.” Sutton preaches the blessings of the rent-to-own business with the enthusiasm of a true believer. He owns a growing number of Champion Rent-to-own stores in Florida and Georgia: more than 20 so far. They offer

James Hogan’s problems started in 1989 when he borrowed and then paid $6,200 to a home-repair contractor in Atlanta to fix his roof and do other work. His attorney says an independent appraiser later asses the value of the work at $3,474. Fleet Finance tried to evict Hogan from his home. Photo by APF Fellow Michael Hudson

Loan Scams

Some days it seems like the phone at Annie Ruth Bennett’s house in southwest Atlanta won’t ever stop ringing. The callers want to sell her storm windows, debt–consolidation loans, burial plots. Her attorney says it’s all a scheme: They want to steal a piece of

The Marginal Men

The marginal ten, the wretched stragglers for survival on the fringes of farm and city, may already number half a billion. By 1980 they will surpass a billion, by 1990 two billion. Can we imagine any human order surviving with so gross a mass of

Post Featured Image APF Icon

It’s a Revolution All Right

Rome May 2, 1971 The disintegration of Pakistan. The collapse of a government in Turkey. Heightened rural violence in the Philippines. Is it mere coincidence that political explosions have followed spectacular advances in agricultural production in all three countries? From the perspective of the Food

Le Temoin, or the Witness, Time Chart of 8,500 Years of Human History.

How Lonely Sits The City – Part II

Le Témoin Suse, capitale de l’Elam, est situe’ dans la province autrefois fertile du Khuzistan qui prolonge, en Iran, la grande plaine arrosee par le Tigre et l’Euphrate. Aussi sa civilization est elle plus etroitement lies a Celle de la Mesopotamie qu’a celle du Plateau

The Citadel and ruins of Susa; what appear to be eroded hills are actually great piles of debris and rubble - potsherds, human and animal bones, shaped stones and other archeological remains.

How Lonely Sits The City – Part I

A Survey in Two Parts of the Human Impact of Agricultural Development from Prehistoric to Contemporary Times as seen from the Village of Shush-Daniel on the Khuzestan Plain of Southwest Persia Contents Part One: 10,000 to 640 B.C. – Bedouin. PartTwo: Le Temoin – 640

Post Featured Image APF Icon

A Doctrine For Revolution

June 12, 1970 Introductory note: The central, developing theme of previous articles in my study has been that if the governments of the poor nations cannot solve their problems of overpopulation and the social dislocation of the agricultural revolution, many of the world’s cities risk

Sketches Of The Green Revolution – Part IV

Part Four: The Harvest A study in four parts of the human impact of the new seeds and methods of cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a prosperous farming village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India The tractor and the huge red cutting machine came over the

Sketches Of The Green Revolution – Part III

A study in four parts of the human impact of the new seeds and methods of cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a prosperous farming village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India Part Three: Jats And Harijans:The Bullock Cart Race On the afternoon of 12th April, a

Sketches Of The Green Revolution – Part II

A study in four parts of the human impact of the new seeds and methods of cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a prosperous farming village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India Part Two: The Seeds Of ChangeGreen Revolution Everyone said Basant Singh, the richest farmer in

Sketches Of The Green Revolution – Part I

A Study of the Human Impact of the New Seeds and Methods of Cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a Prosperous Village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India Part One: Charan As a team of oxen are we drivenBy the ploughman, our teacherBy the furrows made are

The Thorn

A Play in Eleven Scenes Ludhiana, Punjab April 8, 1970 Home is the place whereWhen you go thereThey have to take you in From Robert Frost’s “Death of the Hired Man” (Introductory note: The Punjab plain, a vast expanse of flat, fertile wheat land extending