BusinessWeek does an extensive job in describing the realities of subprime credit in their May 21, 2007, cover story entitled: “The Poverty Business.”

In recent years, a range of businesses have made financing more readily available to even the riskiest of borrowers. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge.

Why should asset builders care about predatory lending? It seems that no matter how fast we help working families build assets, there are people in the business of taking those assets away just as fast.

Although this article falls short in addressing solutions in how to clean up this industry, it does make clear that building assets is only the first step towards helping working families get out of poverty; helping them protect their assets is what follows.