If I had read this book three years ago, I would have wept my way through to the end. Since things have improved a bit for my family since then, I was able to read The Subprimes with a much clearer eye toward the outer extremes of wealth inequality which Carl Taro Greenfield imagines for the United States of the future. Greenfield does manage to put a humorous spin on a rage-inducing topic, and for that, he deserves kudos.
While I have no doubt that a dystopia populated by high-wage, super wealthy workers who discriminate and persecute unemployables with bad credit scores, could populate California of the near future, Greenfield keeps his tongue firmly in cheek as he describes a country divided between the haves and the have-nots. The Subprimes are condemned to roam the country looking for Ryanvilles and abandoned exurban housing developments into which they can disappear and try to survive.
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