10 ms·
Awful idea. Having the government giving you a rating, even just for loans is way too far. Politics shouldn't impact my ability to pay but it certainly will. Lo
by dumbfoundded 7y ago
Awful idea. Having the government giving you a rating, even just for loans is way too far. Politics shouldn't impact my ability to pay but it certainly will. Look at the games Republicans play to suppress minority voters. You want to give those same people power over your credit scores?
This is just trying to solve a symptom with a deeper problem. The real problem is that our judicial system is absolutely cowardly towards corporation prosecution. If you actually just sent the responsible people to jail or actually bankrupted the worst actors, the situation would improve. This impacts everything from the financial industry to oil & gas to credit to privacy rights on the internet.
All of these companies get away with anything they want because we don't send the execs to jail and we rarely fine them more than the profits they made from doing the bad thing.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoCredit reporting agencies don’t give a “rating”. They keep a record of whether or not you pay debts in a timely manner or not.
- binarymax 7y agoThey absolutely do provide a rating. Equifax, Transunion, and others provide a FICO score (or similar) based on the data they have.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoI meant as their primary purpose, if the government were to offer a similar service. They all started selling scores recently, but lenders don’t necessarily use that, they look at the details themselves and come up with a decision on whether or not to lend.
- caseysoftware 7y agoThat's not accurate. I just finished my home refinance two weeks ago. First, my score qualified me into a certain set of options (rates, points, etc) then they asked about specific details of the report after. But the score is the first pass/qualification.
- pxeboot 7y agoCredit reports are not the same as credit scores. They are typically provided by different companies.
- Chozenlaruso 7y agoThe fair Isaac corporation issue the FICO score and each credit bureau has their own competing score. The Equifax one is call the "Equifax Credit Score"
- mieseratte 7y ago> Republicans play to suppress minority voters. What are they doing to suppress minorities?
- TallGuyShort 7y agoThey want to require people to show government-issued photo IDs when voting to prove they have the right to vote.
- RandomInteger4 7y agoSo basically they're not trying to suppress minority voters?
- oscar_wong67 7y agoPoor people don't have IDs because they don't drive and don't have driver's licenses, and they don't have the work flexibility or the luxury to go to the DMV, afaik
- sverige 7y agoThis is the silliest argument against voter ID laws ever, and should be retired. [0] [1] [2] [0] https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14909764/study-voter-id-racism https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14909764/study-vote... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/opinion/voter-id-study-republicans-democrats.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/opinion/voter-id-study-re... [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs
- jimclegg 7y agoWow this thread reeks of classism. You can't imagine an American that cannot afford $50-100 for a government I.D.? You can imagine (& possibly smell) the feces on the street but not the poor people who excrete it? We know most Americans can't come up with $400 for an emergency, are you going to act like this won't impact voting? This thread is why people are forcing diversity quotas even when it seems unnecessary, income diversity should be next.
- llsf 7y agoBut would just the 3 US credit report companies would go bankrupt if the judicial system was doing its job ? I agree that the government should not rate credit worthiness. But we need a trusted third party that tracks your credit history (just the data of what/when you got credits, and missed payments). Something that the banks and loan shop could consult and compute their own risk assessment. In some European countries, the central bank is the notary authority that keeps track of bad actors (missed payments, bounced checks, etc.) and private banks or loan shop can consult the registry and make their own decision if you are not credit worthy.
- wallace_f 7y agoVotrts want favorite politicians to have power over them, forgetting that the next politician in charge may very well be someone they hate. Anyways, ordinary business and our lives shouldn't be the concern of federal government. It is a different matter if a state went ahead with it.
- dumbfoundded 7y agoOur elections are really a choice between communism and authoritarianism.
- captainredbeard 7y agoCommunism is authoritarian...
- chrischen 7y agoA credit score is different from simply a registry. A registry is just a record. A score is opaque based on proprietary models, and scores can still be derived by private companies.
- joe_the_user 7y agoWhat information is the registry supposed to contain? What if I don't want to put my information there? The last time I checked my credit report, it was a (false) list of ex-employers and ex-addresses. The credit agencies use "undisclosed" methods to verify their data. What would the government do instead?
- liamcardenas 7y agoTo be clear, though, his plan does give you a number that represents your creditworthiness, whether you want to call it a “score” or not. From the article: “a public, transparent algorithm to determine creditworthiness that eliminates racial biases in credit scores.” It doesn’t say whether the bill will ban “private” credit score providers, but I’m not sure how it will put those companies out of business if not.
- chrischen 7y agoThere’s no reason it would put them out of business unless they outcompete them.
- paulddraper 7y ago> Politics shouldn't impact my ability to pay but it certainly will. Look at the games Republicans play to suppress minority voters. You want to give those same people power over your credit scores? Or the Obama-era IRS supposedly targeting conservative groups. [1] Without going down the rabbit's hole of which claims were true and by how much....it's certainly the sort of thing you would rather remove as far as possible from politics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
- rdiddly 7y agoIf the algorithm is and remains transparent and open to revision I don't see the harm.