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You have to look at these things in terms of the alternatives. You're welcome to not participate in the credit system, I didn't for some 8-9 years in my twentie

You have to look at these things in terms of the alternatives. You're welcome to not participate in the credit system, I didn't for some 8-9 years in my twenties. I simply didn't get any loans, credit cards, nothing that required a credit check. Now I'm happy to have access to credit because it makes my life easier and opens doors for me. Once I was ready to start, I found all of my old debts and things had fallen off my report. The agencies knew nothing about me. It took about a year with a Capital One card to rebuild, now I have three cards and a new car, for a while I was shopping for a condo. (ultimately decided against it) You can't have these things without a consumer credit industry, nobody's going to entrust financial instruments like mortgages and credit cards to random blokes coming in off the street. The alternative isn't a world in which credit reporting doesn't exist, the alternative is a world in which none of the things credit reporting gives you access to exist either. You can live in that world today. Stop paying your bills, let your credit cards go to collections, ignore the phone calls until you can change your number and move away. That's exactly what I did when I was 21. My only regret really is that I didn't run up bigger credit card balances or buy a nicer car. Credit reporting exists because lots of people are like I was when I was 21.

showerst 11y ago
I'm not sure how old you are, but nowadays many (most?) employers will do a credit check along with your routine background check. Dropping out of the system might deny you a job at any large company, which greatly increase the costs of doing so.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Never said there weren't costs to it. You're essentially opting out of a middle class lifestyle. That didn't bother me 10 years ago. Now I want those things, and I'm finding that consumer credit is practically the only way to get them on a reasonable time frame. They simply cost too much to save up for. Consumer credit is the parent that loves you no matter what and will always take you back no matter what you say to them or how badly you fuck up. Being a market industry, naturally that love is predicated on them making money off of you, but still, it adds to modern life more than it takes away. And I find it a mark of maturity to recognize that fact.
  - galdosdi 11y ago
    Well, it's not _things_, plural, that consumer credit is required to obtain. Just one thing singular, since really the only thing you _need_ consumer credit for is home ownership. (Pretty much anything else, you can save up for and/or get a cheaper yet comparable used/etc option simply by being shrewd. It just doesn't make a lot of financial sense to use credit for a car, furniture, etc, when you can get them affordably by just not being dumb enough to want brand new crap) But that one thing, home ownership, is totally a biggie. I rent, and it sucks to have to worry every June about whether this is going to be the year we have to move because the landlord doesn't feel like renewing our lease this time
- eru 11y ago
  How do they hire foreigners, then?
- marincounty 11y ago
  A required credit check for employment is illegal in California. California gets some things right.
mindslight 11y ago
> the alternative is a world in which none of the things credit reporting gives you access to exist either ... you can live in that world today No, you cannot. The availability of easy credit (based on pervasive surveillance) inflates the prices to the point where saving up and buying outright is no longer option for most people (see: housing and college).
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  I disagree that it's credit that's inflated prices. I think this might be true for certain segments like for-profit colleges. Supply and demand still works. Housing is still relatively cheap in the US, where population density is so low that the amount of land available to buy and build on is stupendously large compared to denser nations like the UK. Sure, certain markets have inflated prices, but that's just normal supply and demand at work. If you want to buy property to live on, you can move out to the sticks and do that for pretty darned cheap.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    The level of that "demand" is essentially driven by the availability of money - people have an unwavering need to live around concentrations of economic activity, because that is where income is made. People budget for the real estate they can afford in terms of monthly payments. If you doubled interest rates, prices would essentially halve for any land not in "the sticks". Surely you'd agree that if we doubled the money supply by converting USD to USD' at a rate of 1:2, prices would double. So why not expect similar behavior from an individual sector, especially since it has both a direct connection to money generation and is also recursively self-appraising?
- jrnichols 11y ago
  Starting to see the same thing in health care. Oh, you can't afford this surgery? No problem, we take Care Credit! Low interest rates! :/
  - mindslight 11y ago
arca_vorago 11y ago
"You're welcome to not participate in the credit system," Allow me to posit that this isn't true, and give an example of my reasoning. I will lead this by saying one thing to keep in mind is that debt is inversely proportional to freedom in my mind. The credit system has encouraged debt in society as a whole, which definitely can't be avoided just by removing your particular self from the system. For a more concrete example of this, straight from the video I linked: before 2008 property wasn't worth anything, so they encouraged everyone to over-leverage, buy more property with the money you borrow, then buy more and more property, until everyone was completely over-leveraged and there wasn't any money left. The 08 crash was quantifiably tied to the fucked up nature of the credit system. Not only that, but you are speaking about abusing the system by moving away, but what I consider it an abuse of the people to encourage people into debt and away from fiscally sound policy. You could be wealthy, pay things in cash, and owe no one anything, but ask for a loan and get told no, because you are exactly the kind of customer the credit agencies (and banks) don't want. What the banks want is people with crappy credit scores so they can charge usurious interests rates and encumber and fiscally rape people the rest of their lives. That's not a system that is just about being "welcome to not participate in", it's a system that fucks up our society for the worse and it's effects are unavoidable even if you do remove yourself from it. On the matter of mortages and cars, etc, I would say the over-avilability of credit has inflated prices in a way that makes this a self-fulfilling prophecy. If prices were closer to actual costs, it would be much more doable.

showerst 11y ago

I'm not sure how old you are, but nowadays many (most?) employers will do a credit check along with your routine background check. Dropping out of the system might deny you a job at any large company, which greatly increase the costs of doing so.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Never said there weren't costs to it. You're essentially opting out of a middle class lifestyle. That didn't bother me 10 years ago. Now I want those things, and I'm finding that consumer credit is practically the only way to get them on a reasonable time frame. They simply cost too much to save up for. Consumer credit is the parent that loves you no matter what and will always take you back no matter what you say to them or how badly you fuck up. Being a market industry, naturally that love is predicated on them making money off of you, but still, it adds to modern life more than it takes away. And I find it a mark of maturity to recognize that fact.
- galdosdi 11y ago
  Well, it's not _things_, plural, that consumer credit is required to obtain. Just one thing singular, since really the only thing you _need_ consumer credit for is home ownership. (Pretty much anything else, you can save up for and/or get a cheaper yet comparable used/etc option simply by being shrewd. It just doesn't make a lot of financial sense to use credit for a car, furniture, etc, when you can get them affordably by just not being dumb enough to want brand new crap) But that one thing, home ownership, is totally a biggie. I rent, and it sucks to have to worry every June about whether this is going to be the year we have to move because the landlord doesn't feel like renewing our lease this time
eru 11y ago
How do they hire foreigners, then?
marincounty 11y ago
A required credit check for employment is illegal in California. California gets some things right.

mindslight 11y ago

> the alternative is a world in which none of the things credit reporting gives you access to exist either ... you can live in that world today No, you cannot. The availability of easy credit (based on pervasive surveillance) inflates the prices to the point where saving up and buying outright is no longer option for most people (see: housing and college).

vinceguidry 11y ago
I disagree that it's credit that's inflated prices. I think this might be true for certain segments like for-profit colleges. Supply and demand still works. Housing is still relatively cheap in the US, where population density is so low that the amount of land available to buy and build on is stupendously large compared to denser nations like the UK. Sure, certain markets have inflated prices, but that's just normal supply and demand at work. If you want to buy property to live on, you can move out to the sticks and do that for pretty darned cheap.
- mindslight 11y ago
  The level of that "demand" is essentially driven by the availability of money - people have an unwavering need to live around concentrations of economic activity, because that is where income is made. People budget for the real estate they can afford in terms of monthly payments. If you doubled interest rates, prices would essentially halve for any land not in "the sticks". Surely you'd agree that if we doubled the money supply by converting USD to USD' at a rate of 1:2, prices would double. So why not expect similar behavior from an individual sector, especially since it has both a direct connection to money generation and is also recursively self-appraising?
jrnichols 11y ago
Starting to see the same thing in health care. Oh, you can't afford this surgery? No problem, we take Care Credit! Low interest rates! :/
- mindslight 11y ago

arca_vorago 11y ago

"You're welcome to not participate in the credit system," Allow me to posit that this isn't true, and give an example of my reasoning. I will lead this by saying one thing to keep in mind is that debt is inversely proportional to freedom in my mind. The credit system has encouraged debt in society as a whole, which definitely can't be avoided just by removing your particular self from the system. For a more concrete example of this, straight from the video I linked: before 2008 property wasn't worth anything, so they encouraged everyone to over-leverage, buy more property with the money you borrow, then buy more and more property, until everyone was completely over-leveraged and there wasn't any money left. The 08 crash was quantifiably tied to the fucked up nature of the credit system. Not only that, but you are speaking about abusing the system by moving away, but what I consider it an abuse of the people to encourage people into debt and away from fiscally sound policy. You could be wealthy, pay things in cash, and owe no one anything, but ask for a loan and get told no, because you are exactly the kind of customer the credit agencies (and banks) don't want. What the banks want is people with crappy credit scores so they can charge usurious interests rates and encumber and fiscally rape people the rest of their lives. That's not a system that is just about being "welcome to not participate in", it's a system that fucks up our society for the worse and it's effects are unavoidable even if you do remove yourself from it. On the matter of mortages and cars, etc, I would say the over-avilability of credit has inflated prices in a way that makes this a self-fulfilling prophecy. If prices were closer to actual costs, it would be much more doable.