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As an immigrant I can tell you that the USA is basically Jurassic Park. The monsters are mostly predatory companies. It can be a lot of fun but it’s very easy t

As an immigrant I can tell you that the USA is basically Jurassic Park. The monsters are mostly predatory companies. It can be a lot of fun but it’s very easy to do worse than die - to end up a slave for the rest of your life to one of the predators. Along with bullshit like making options trading available to kids, debt is probably one of the velociraptors. It is a trap sprung at the very start of your adult life when you’re most vulnerable, as a student loan. It’s sprung when you’ve lost your job, are vulnerable and are about to become homeless. It’s sprung when you’re already in debt and vulnerable, by other lenders. Anyone see a pattern here? Debt preys on the vulnerable, turns them into something that delivers returns for decades to the holders, and wraps all that up into tidy looking financial products. The business of debt is the financial equivalent of the US pork industry: Everyone treats it as part of American life, but the details would make most people throw up. Anyone remember microfinance? That was the same play: usury with a fresh coat of paint. I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable. Look up usury folks. This is it. Debt that is intentionally structured so that it can never be repaid and keeps the borrower harnessed to the cart. It’s incredible how folks, particularly in the US, have become this morally uncalibrated.

fallingknife 5y ago
I agree with most of what you are saying, except for: > to end up a slave for the rest of your life to one of the predators One of the best parts of the US system is that you can always file bankruptcy and live to fight another day
entangledqubit 5y ago
Also, to make sure there's enough prey, let's not make financial education a requirement, in general, so people can make well reasoned choices...
- bequanna 5y ago
  What kind of additional financial education would you recommend? I think we are already doing a decent putting this info in front of our young. I grew up very rural and solidly lower middle class. We learned to balance checkbooks in 8th grade, had an accounting class in 11th, and a “life skills” required course that taught about budgets, loans, interest rates, credit cards, apartment leases, and so on. I am in my late 30s and everyone Ive ever mentioned this to was exposed to pretty much the same set of things before they left high school.
  - entangledqubit 5y ago
    Based on my own experiences (around same age) and discussions with friends, the depth of your financial education is the exception. The checkbook one comes up a regularly, while loans and interest rates come up in the context of math classes. I guess I'd also be curious how deep those topics went. Like for apartment leases, notions of how to find out tenants rights in your area and how to push back on bad landlords. For budgets, what do you do if you can't make a budget work. Things to watch out for when considering employers and common scams. A lot of this stuff I was able to pick up over the years but if you get screwed early on it can really affect your life trajectory. Sources seem less objective than when I was learning this stuff. If you're first gen semi-wealthy - say a SWE in the valley - there's a whole other education that's necessary... I have talked to many SWEs that don't understand their comp.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
Maximum interest rates on loans have actually been found to harm low income people by depriving them of the best options available and leading them to use even worse options.
baby 5y ago
You should edit your message to include health issues and the lack of good healthcare. That'll make you homeless too.
dirk_novitzki 5y ago
Now ask yourself if it is okay that so much of the discussion of the tech world goes on a YC property.
- duped 5y ago
  HN is a microcosm, very little of the discussion of the "tech world" is happening here. There is a lot of open disdain for it outside of the SFBA startup bubble.
- largbae 5y ago
  It seems like this particular negative discussion is being allowed through. Are you saying HN is censored in YC's favor?
  - codeddesign 5y ago
    I wouldn’t say that, but the mods do certainly pick and choose - similar to Twitter.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I've seen the mods take a pretty hands-off stance when YC (or its companies) are being criticized. I think it's a stated policy and I've generally felt they live by it. (If they didn't, I suppose I couldn't necessarily tell for sure, but based on what I see them "let stand", I think they do.) They're human and imperfect, but they don't seem to do much "home cooking" from what I can tell. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27438258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27438258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400556
      - abernard1 5y ago
        If I get banned/downvoted for this, so be it. But I cannot image a more naive or less aware position. This site is incredibly censored. Their mod system is very gamed with people who know how to build up credit and downvote en masse. Whether or not the founders support this behavior, it exists. There is a nasty, nasty f-in power culture that censors people along a political power axis these days. You cannot understand YC/HN without understanding this puritanical (left-wing) culture that has burrowed its way into VC backed companies.
luckydata 5y ago
the credit score is pretty much an enforcement system to ensure you're constantly in debt and most people I speak to think it's a good thing it exists. Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed and can't really think clearly about how screwed up their society is. note: I'm also an immigrant, now citizen. I get the right to complain cause I pay taxes.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > the credit score is pretty much an enforcement system to ensure you're constantly in debt No debt here and my credit score is great. You don’t have to be in debt to have a good credit score.
  - iskander 5y ago
    My wife tried to buy a new car with an extremely high credit score. They wouldn't give her the auto loan because of insufficient credit history, which acts as a second undisclosed factor in loan approval. I had to co-sign with my worse (~700) credit score because I had a history with student loans, credit card consolidation loans, &c
    - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      Yes, that’s how credit history works. You can’t expect to get a $30,000 loan at a reasonable interest rate without having at least some history of repaying smaller credit lines first. But you don’t need to go into debt to have a credit history. Anyone with a credit card who pays it off monthly is building a strong credit history despite never paying any interest. It’s standard practice to use credit cards for this reason. Credit cards also have a lot of buyer protections that debit cards and checks generally don’t.
      - michaelt 5y ago
        Being in debt for 30 days without paying any interest is still being in debt. If I owe someone $100 then I have a debt of $100, even if I've also got $100,000 in my bank account.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It can be a lot of fun but it’s very easy to do worse than die - to end up a slave for the rest of your life to one of the predators. The US has relatively generous bankruptcy laws. Many people go through bankruptcy and rebuild their credit over several years. It’s not true that you’re a “slave for the rest of your life”. Student loans (which are much lower interest rate and nothing like these loans) can’t be discharged in bankruptcy but even those are open to modification or discharge in the event of hardship. > I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable. These are exactly the type of loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The people requesting these loans had almost certainly been denied lower interest rate loans because they were likely to go bankrupt. The alternative isn’t that these people get lower interest rates. The alternative is that they don’t get approved for any loans at all. Frankly I think that’s the best option for most of them, but that’s not really my choice to make. It’s theirs. > It’s incredible how folks, particularly in the US, have become this morally uncalibrated. The US gives people a lot of freedom to make their own choices. Still, we do have a lot of protections, but even those are delegated to individual states. In fact, many states do have laws that limit interest rates to as low as 4-5% (bank installment loans). That doesn't mean people in those states are all entitled to cheap loans, but it does mean that anyone with poor credit can't willingly enter into high-APR loans even if they need a short float until their next payday.
- ahallock 5y ago
  My friend has gone through bankruptcy twice. It was a breeze both times. Paid a court fee and had to go through a simple online course. I wish there weren't such a stigma because companies do this all the time.
  - codeddesign 5y ago
    Are you referring to company bankruptcy or personal? Company is easy, personal is extreme.
    - ahallock 5y ago
      Personal. What's extreme? My friend (or me if you think I'm doing that joke) is rebuilding their credit now. They discharged a bunch of medical and credit card debt.
coding123 5y ago
It is a country that has given only a voice to those in power too. I wonder if that plays into it. We pretend that everyone has access to it but the truth is far from that.
deleted 5y ago
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kirse 5y ago
There's a happy medium with debt. Dave Ramsey takes a conservative approach in that he prefers saving your entire stack before buying something, I personally like to keep (total debt < net worth), with some consideration for liquidity risk thrown in. If I lost my job could I be a free man or am I buried and sweating? Others take that multiplier even further and sometimes luck out. On one hand debt causes issues for those who lack knowledge, but on the other hand it allows a great degree of near-term accelerated growth and societal load-balancing. The fact that society enables folks to collectively trust others to pay their debts is why we're not still stuck with a barter economy and the inherent inefficiencies of a "trust-less" economic approach. So much of present growth and fruitfulness is rooted in the future faith that others will make good on their promises (debt). Debt is a great thing in moderation.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  The case for debt is clear enough with a home, a car, or a business investment. Hard to imagine feeling anything but embarrassment or frustration at paying off a television years after you got it.
  - alkot89 5y ago
    What is the difference other than a psychological one? Especially when you use car as an example. A car will probably depreciate just like a TV. It comes down to whether the terms are good. I have purchased TVs and computers on for 0 or very low APR because I had better things to do with the cash. I have no problem paying $4000 2 or 3 years in the future for a TV I have had the whole time - it beat the alternative.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      A car has obvious practical utility if you live in a country where a car is the only way to get around. In many places it's basically essential to having a basic life where you get to your job, and so on. A television has comparatively little such practical utility, and the downsides to setting your sights on a cheaper one are much easier to live with. The value of a car is also substantially greater (making a cash purchase less practical) and your odds of recovering a substantial portion of the purchase price through resale are much better (indeed with a TV you'll likely pay to get rid of it).
godot 5y ago
IMO debt is a complicated topic -- One could criticize debt as traps for the poor, one could also criticize that the rich can use debts to maximize leverages / avoid taxes. Is debt something you don't want to get into? If so then why are the rich taking advantages of them? Does that mean you should prevent the poor from getting in debt? Is that not even worse -- gating them from education, home ownership, etc.? Is the problem then that education and housing cost too much? Or is the issue really proper education for the poor on what debt and how much debt they can afford? More rules and regulations to prevent them from getting debt "too easily"? Is that more gate-keeping against the poor then? I don't have answers to any of these and I don't have a perspective. Just wondering out loud.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I don't think it's controversial to say that the kind of debt the rich would use has rather different terms than a payday loan.
whiskyant 5y ago
In the US, you can also declare bankruptcy and wipe out almost all debt (except punitive debt). In some countries, debt follows you forever and even gets passed to your family when you die.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  I'd rather live in a system without the institution of bankruptcy and enjoy life with almost zero risk of this happening. If you're an average American you start getting into debt very early in your life. This is not how young people should be entering adult lives. What you Americans think is normal, really isn't.
  - vivekd 5y ago
    not american, canadian, but it' hard to avoid it here, most people wouldn't tbe able to get a car, university education or home without some form of debt. It does have a very negative impact on our society I'll admit that It's normal for people here to enter their adult lives with between 20 to 80 k of debt from university
  - frockington1 5y ago
    It's also what propels Americans into a higher standard of living than anywhere else. At a young age I bought a couple investment properties with an enormous amount of debt. Now I'm living a very nice life with little to worry about. Debt is a tool just like a hammer is. Don't be yourself in the head with it, use it to make your life better
    - bitcharmer 5y ago
      > higher standard of living than anywhere else. Have you by any chance heard of places like Switzerland or Monaco? Even Germany beats USA in terms of poverty and malnutrition among children.
    - martin8412 5y ago
      Standard of living isn’t really comparable between people. Most people in Western Europe live really nice lives without the need to buy pointless junk
orangepurple 5y ago
> Along with bullshit like making options trading available to kids Have you tried to open an options trading account? There are usually multiple levels of authorization and LOTS of e-paperwork to fill out explaining your age, financial situation, and financial education.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Have you any idea what options are intended for? Yes I've opened an account and it's a series of checkboxes. There's no "LOTS of e-paperwork". You clearly have not opened an account, or you're being disingenuous. It's literally you promising that you're an experienced trader and done. Think Alex Kearns, the 20 year old RobinHood trader who was trading options, and said in his suicide note that he didn't know what he was doing, was fully vetted? Options are unbelievably complex. 99.9% of traders don't even know what Black Scholes is and can't read financials. They're exotic instruments used as a hedging strategy against black swan events as part of a much larger portfolio, and the hedging strategy is designed to lose continuously for a decade if needed. It's become a casino that lets kids make cheap short term bets against a stock making big moves, for a price far lower than the underlying asset. But the trouble with options is this: With stock you're betting on one thing: Stock goes up. That's it. With options you have to predict direction, timing, magnitude, and a wrong bet is guaranteed to lose 100% of your investment immediately on expiry. No riding it out. We've had a huge bull market. When the market turns, and it always does, and the suicides start, and the stories of ruined families emerge, then the post-mortem will begin and we'll all heal together and, in time, we'll forget about the victims, as we always do. But their lives will remain in ruin. And the predatory cycle will repeat. As it always has.
  - pishpash 5y ago
    Heard a human-interest story on local radio praising the pandemic child tax credit. Most said they paid their mortgage, bought food, etc., but one said they spent it on stocks and cryptocurrency. Yeah that's not going to end well.
    - hindsightbias 5y ago
mytailorisrich 5y ago
High APR is quite reasonable for very short term loans. E.g. 36% APR must be around 3% a month, which does not sound unreasonable for a one month loan. Here in the UK credit cards are very commonly at circa 20% APR. What's important is to mandate detailed and clear information so that consumers understand what the rate exactly means and what the consequences or not repaying quickly are before they sign up. Then it's a personal choice and responsibility.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  3% a month is not reasonable by past metrics. Utility companies like heating oil that didn't want to loan money used to charge 0.5-1.5% per month after the grace period back when normal mortgage rates were ~7% (APY) and car loans more like 11%(APY). This is simply being in the business of gouging people who will end up needing to carry loans over and are better off having bad credit but never really have a point of change where they realize they need to declare bankruptcy or take other financial advice.
leeoniya 5y ago
> debt is probably one of the velociraptors. you probably mean Utahraptor; velociraptors were rather smallish, contrary to what the movies would have you believe. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Dromie_scale.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Dromie_s...
- TheDong 5y ago
  I think in this case velociraptor is correct. The parent comment is not talking about the real dinosaurs, but rather making an analogy to the fictional creatures in the movie, which means the terminology of the movie is correct since that's the context. The pedantic point would be "the movie meant Utahraptor" or such, but not that the parent commenter did.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Today I learned. Thanks. :-)
halayli 5y ago
Agreed with your sentiment. It's scary easy to fall down and go from ok living style to becoming homeless. But on the other hand, healthy debt is what grows the economy and it's a necessity. There should be more regulation / laws toward loan grants and far more regulation toward APR. One thing for sure is that the system cannot favor lenders over borrowers or vice versa because failure on either side results in collapsing the system.
heavyset_go 5y ago
There's a reason many religions have a lot to say about usury. Abrahamic religions have debt jubilees in their religious texts during which slaves were freed and debts were forgiven[1]. [1] https://theconversation.com/the-debt-jubilee-an-old-testament-solution-to-a-modern-financial-crisis-11816 https://theconversation.com/the-debt-jubilee-an-old-testamen...
oa335 5y ago
I highly recommend “Debt: The First 5000 Years” by late anthropologist David Graeber. He does a good job of highlighting the oddities of our existing financial system by comparing it to others throughout human history.
abernard1 5y ago
> I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable. Look up usury folks. This is it. Debt that is intentionally structured so that it can never be repaid and keeps the borrower harnessed to the cart. This is Brazil or Mexico. Or payday loans. It's emphatically not America at large unless you live in SF. Please leave your bubble.
- callmeal 5y ago
  >This is Brazil or Mexico. Or payday loans. It's emphatically not America at large unless you live in SF. Payday loans are America at large. And don't forget Credit Cards rates.
  - abernard1 5y ago
    > And don't forget Credit Cards rates. You mean those 18 month 0% APR rates for credit balance transfers? The US has huge rates for long term debt, but this is silly.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
int_19h 5y ago
One thing that I've always found interesting is that, historically speaking, usury is very consistently frowned upon, even across societies that are otherwise very different. What more, the interest limits were usually far harsher than anything that we have today. One can't help but wonder if our society being so deviant from the historical norm is evidence of its long-term unsustainability.
- heartbeats 5y ago
  That's true, but the usury back in the day was usually about loans to individuals. These days, you can bankrupt out of it. Traditionally, the Catholic Church has made a distinction between loans ultimately backed by an individual's ability to sell their labor for money (mutuum loans), and loans ultimately backed by assets (societas loans). For societas loans, such as a non-recourse mortgage or a business loan, there is no regulation whatsoever. This is just equivalent to moving property around. For mutuum loans, these are considered as a form of slavery. If a profit is being made on it, it is illicit. The reason it's slavery is that it allows you to sell your time before you have it. If that money is spent, you are now in a position where you are being forced to work for nothing, i.e. textbook slavery. There's a good FAQ at https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-money-on-the-pill/ https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-..., but I would like to learn more about this topic. Any good books?
thisiswater 5y ago
Ironic, seeing as it's prohibited in the (expletive for emphasis)'n bible.
- frockington1 5y ago
  The US has a clear separation of church and state. Christian Values != Christian Laws
Jach 5y ago
If the US is Jurassic Park, what was the place you came from?
- xwdv 5y ago
  The Matrix.
- john_moscow 5y ago
  You'd be surprised, but many Western European countries have a concept of being decent, sense of duty, etc. While the modus operandi in the U.S. seems to be "go for it, as long as you can get away without getting jailed or sued". On the other hand, the European culture pushes back quite heavily towards fitting in and against entrepreneurship, so neither of them is perfect.
  - bitcharmer 5y ago
    > On the other hand, the European culture pushes back quite heavily towards fitting in and against entrepreneurship, so neither of them is perfect. I've lived in Europe (a few different countries) over 40 years. What your saying is simply not true.
    - john_moscow 5y ago
      Lived in Western Europe for a while. Most innovative small businesses I've seen involved fudging the numbers in some way to get government grants.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Then where are all of the innovative companies? Europe has a massive drain brain problem because it absolutely does not reward innovation in any business sense.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  I'm guessing they are from some place where people can live their lives without having to worry about that as much. Europe?
bombcar 5y ago
Easy fix - forbid usurious loans that people are personally liable for. Only allow repossession of a actual asset in the case of failure to pay - and suddenly all these go away.
IAmGraydon 5y ago
Interest is the counterbalance of risk. One only exists because of the other. That’s all there is to it. People are free to use both sides of that equation to their benefit or to their peril. Your argument is simply that we should protect people from themselves, and I would strongly disagree. You’re an immigrant - what did you come here for?
fourstar 5y ago
> Look up usury folks For anyone actually interested in "looking up usury", I highly recommend: A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind Note: you can't buy it on Amazon. Surprise surprise. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-history-of-central-banking-and-the-enslavement-of-mankind-stephen-mitford-goodson/1120520068?ean=9781912759200 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-history-of-central-bankin...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
You are correct. When I got married, I brought in a lot of personal credit card debt, and we ended up using our wedding gift money to pay it off. It was extremely humiliating. Since then, I have lived quite frugally, and avoided all personal debt; paying off credit cards in total, each month. By the time we were ready to purchase a house, our credit was sky-high, and getting a decent mortgage rate wasn’t difficult. Our house is tiny. We live in a middle-class neighborhood. No Teslas on our block. I also saved between 25-40% of my income in as many ways as possible, including some fairly decent funds. I have habitually avoided debt, and lived quite humbly, my entire adult life. I have never wanted for anything, and have always been able to afford top-shelf equipment for my software development work, but I suspect that a lot of folks here, would sneer at my life. Good thing, too. When I left my job of almost 27 years, and started looking for work, I learned that no one wants to work with “olds.” That too, was humiliating, and infuriating. In fairly short order, I just threw in the towel. I won’t go where I’m not wanted. My savings allowed me to set up a small corporation to buy equipment and software, while I pursued my “dream job,” of working for free. I am working with a 501(c)(3), giving them software that would make a lot of “big league” corporations green with envy. I have the skills and experience to make others a lot of money, but my grey hair is so terrifying, that no one pays attention to my qualifications. I quickly learned to just avoid the agita. NPOs are grateful for whatever they can get, and I am appreciated. I couldn’t be happier.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  The desire and pressure to consume conspicuously is something embedded in US culture, much like smoking was. Make it rain. Just don't tell me what my APR is in the morning. The amount of discipline required to save and defer gratification is enormous, and it is a continuous effort, particularly in this country. You are one of the few. One of the brave. Congratulations!
- john_moscow 5y ago
  >I have the skills and experience to make others a lot of money, but my grey hair is so terrifying, that no one pays attention to my qualifications. You need to position yourself as a consultant with a clearly defined area of expertise, your own site, blog, etc. A salaried employee these days is first and foremost a team monkey hired to please the boss, and only then a skilled professional. When you need someone with actual expertise, you hire them transactionally to solve the problem and keep them on a separate frequency from the usual chicken coup business.
xwolfi 5y ago
I'm an immigrant from France in Hong Kong, another predatory capitalist jurisdiction, and even here it's still bounded by some logic. Payday loans are really frowned upon, I think there's something in Chinese societies, just like the French one I come from, that prevent people to fully enslave themselves in silly debt on the same massive scale as the US. And kids can trade somewhat here, at least every child has a stock account managed by his parents, the national sport being speculative trading here, so we ARE the jungle too. We're discussing a bankrupcy low, which I think would put the final nail in the predatory coffin - in the last few years I've seen the bank evolve from full-on anti-client predators to finally proposing Debit cards !!! But nobody in France, or in Hong Kong, would take a 30-year student loan. It seems nearly possible in the U.S., at the start of your life. How can they do that to each other, ofc kids are stupid and think college is about "the college experience" that the loan makers pushed via financing movies about it and won't choose the local one with good enough teachers that cost nothing and move on. I think they should really close the ivy league schools, opt out of Shanghai ranking, forbid foreigners - just like France does involuntarily (no top school, Shanghai snubs us, foreigners don't care about education in the French language) which ends up with cheap colleges for local kids with good enough teachers. But admittedly poorer research funding, but I never understood why we need to learn corporate finance or java enterprise deployment or heart surgery from researchers writing theoretical papers ONLY.
florin_g 5y ago
As an immigrant (of 27 years) I can tell you that the USA is not Jurassic Park enough (Is that a good metaphor?). The monsters keep me on the edge. It is my job to watch for the traps. I am being lied left and right, in many ways, including companies your kind empower. Everyone wants my money. I fell and got back on my feet. I am ordinary and I am thankful. I am a parent to my own children - as for me, a big daddy is the worst that can happen to me.
refurb 5y ago
Disagree strongly. I’ve lived in places that ban payday loans and it just goes underground. What you’re approach is, is to just han things because “people are too dumb to make good choices”. I’d prefer not to live in a society like that. And I’m kinda surprised you left out mortgages. The US has far less mortgage debt than other Western countries. Sure they don’t take on student loans, but they seem happy to take on massive mortgages.
- heartbeats 5y ago
  Illegal loans are harder to collect on. Sure, you have mob tactics, but there's a limit on how far it can go.
  - refurb 5y ago
    You’d be surprised. Singapore has a massive problem with illegal loans. And that’s a country with a pretty strict police force.
varelse 5y ago
It's even better when talk of forgiving student loans triggers the sorts that were fortunate enough to pay them off on their own to decry that as some sort of giveaway the victims of these practices don't deserve. I mean it's great to pay your way out of debt but the game is rigged exactly as you state. And I deeply wonder about the hidden costs of having so much of our population saddled with this debt. No proof but I'll bet it outweighs the cost of canceling that debt not that we'll ever know.
bitcharmer 5y ago
You hit the nail on the head. It's terrifying how many Americans on this thread defend this despicable system as something normal and expected.
- horns4lyfe 5y ago
  It’s terrifying that people in this thread think economies built on debt and usury is a uniquely American system. These types of posts are basically just turning into reddit
- ransom1538 5y ago
  This isn't America. Here is season 6 ep01 of an ENTIRE reality show series in England collecting money from people not paying debts [many of them payday loans]. In England they just walk into your home and start taking things. In Dubai they put debtors in prison. Isreal is covered in payday loans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6yBiasqMnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6yBiasqMnM https://www.detainedindubai.org/post/the-truth-about-leaving-a-debt-behind-in-dubai https://www.detainedindubai.org/post/the-truth-about-leaving... https://www.jpost.com/special-content/the-fall-of-payday-loans-in-israel-597941 https://www.jpost.com/special-content/the-fall-of-payday-loa...
  - bitcharmer 5y ago
    Crippling student loans or medical bankruptcy does not exist in UK or any other European country, so that's a pretty bad comparison. I was not referring to just payday loans.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      It’s terrifying how many Europeans come out and defend payday loans and pretend their system where it’s more difficult to declare bankruptcy is somehow better than the US debt system.
      - bitcharmer 5y ago
        Where did you see Europeans defending payday loans?
8ytecoder 5y ago
One can argue that it's because student loans are easy to get, that there are so many spurious universities preying on students. I wouldn't really disagree with that. Let me share a different perspective. I couldn't get a student loan. They don't make it easy to get student loans in my country. Very few are alloted by public banks and those go to the managers' favorites. Because of the lack of a collateral, private banks don't every try - too much risk. My parents had to sell the only property we had - our house - to send me to college. I don't know if that is a better situation to be honest. I'd have gladly gone into debt to let my parents keep their home. And the best part is that education wasn't even expensive for me - esp with the govt scholarship. But even that little money was a huge expense for my family. I know so many other fellow students who had a similar story. It's hard to imagine how many other families could have been lifted if they were given an opportunity like I had.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Glad you mentioned usury, a sin in every major religion, once illegal in the u.s. until a quirk in the law allowed it to flourish. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1398&context=articles https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer...
samstave 5y ago
If I could give you all my karma points, I would. I have made the exact comment to many over the years and I hope that more people such as yourself are as eloquent and succinct in conveying this point. XO
kortilla 5y ago
Most debt in the US can be discharged through bankruptcy. Student loans that are bankruptcy proof are a gift from the government in the last 30 years. The entire tone of your post would be different if you realized that it’s like the game Jurassic Park, not the movie, because you can start over whenever you lose. The way to win in the US is lots of tries, not guaranteed wins.
noduerme 5y ago
Coming from an immigrant family myself which stressed savings and frugality above all, and who even with basic literacy and no formal education understood that debt was a trap, and that under no circumstances should you ever borrow money, I wonder what's wrong with 5th+ generation Americans who think they can get something for nothing. Not to say anything about predatory lenders, who all belong in hell right next to the people selling miracle cures for Covid, but come on. The only reason there are so many people who fall for these traps is that the economy has grown and grown thanks to the endless influx of immigrants who create value. Left to their own devices, without immigrants who work and save, Americans would end up an impoverished banana republic within one generation.
darawk 5y ago
> It’s sprung when you’ve lost your job, are vulnerable and are about to become homeless. I mean, I think you can call this a trap, or you can call it a life raft. If you take away the option of debt, the option that remains is homelessness. I'm not really sure its fair to call that a trap. If there is a trap there, it's the fact that the person was in a position to become homeless in the first place. Not that some lender offered them a temporary respite.
- neuronic 5y ago
  If the option to debt is homelessness maybe think about that system for a second as opposed to what society is capable of providing if you let it. Predatory corporations rule America today so the Jurassic Park comparison is quite apt. There is very solid middle ground in a social market economy. We built societies as a construct to support the people living in them, but America is all about competition and individuals. There is barely any sense of community left unless media frames it like a sports event (team blue vs. team red or whatever).
bennysomething 5y ago
You are free not to get into consumer debt. Maybe educating kids to stay the hell away from consumer debt would be a good idea. Not all debt is bad. It allows businesses to function and to go grow. We can see the effects of trying to have debt free societies in Islamic countries, it stunts economic growth. Student debt in America is another thing, not allowing bankruptcy in this situation is horrendous.
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  Any argument starting with "you are free not to..." invariably misses the point. Yes, freedom and individual responsibility are important. No, you cannot build a sane society exclusively on those. People don't have infinite time and knowledge to identify all the things, behaviors, products, services that "they are free not to choose". They can't read all the legalistic fine print designed by professionals to deceive and obfuscate while keeping them unaccountable. This is particularly problematic as the "freedom principle" gets applied differentially in sectoral silos: When you go to the supermarket, you don't have to choose what will not kill you. Ditto when you select a car, a medical procedure or drug. Why should the financial sector (or the tech sector for that matter, as the two increasingly merge) be any different? When people are increasingly data mined, algorithmically and behaviorally goaded to overconsumption patterns, instant gratification, addiction etc. the argument that they "are free to choose" is more than hollow. Until the US (and imitators) address this moral rot at the core of its socioeconomic system it will be rolling from crisis to crisis. This will only open the door for worse alternatives. Individual responsibility should only be invoked when the individuals concerned have all the required information and ability and can be reasonably expected to excercise that agency given their context across the entire spectrum of economic interactions.
janeroe 5y ago
> As an immigrant I can tell you... Being an immigrant, of course, makes you an expert.
- cromka 5y ago
  Being an immigrant gives you an edge of being more critical towards the country you reside in, for having been raised differently and thus instinctively noticing things that natives otherwise have been normalized to ignore.
  - janeroe 5y ago
    In theory. In practice I see too many comments that use the phrase ("as an immigrant") as a way to turn their opinion (not always very smart) into some kind of fact. Look at the parent comment, it's not in the form "in my opinion as an immigrant". It's "as an immigrant I can tell you" as if that's something objective. Well, I'm not an American and I can't tell you that. Quite the opposite, in my opinion his comment is rubbish.
dncornholio 5y ago
Don't forget credit cards. They make you spend money you don't have. Bringing you in with benefits you should've had in the first place (extended warranty etc).
Cort3z 5y ago
Not to mention "credit rating" which is capitalism's answer to the communist "social rating". Don't get me wrong, I much prefer capitalism, but it has some really dark sides.
CTDOCodebases 5y ago
Even if you are able to circumvent all this the only way at them moment to protect your savings is to borrow money and invest it in real estate or whatever.
brightball 5y ago
I helped a kid at my church get out of his title loan. I knew it was bad but when I saw the actual amount I wanted to hit something. 212%!!!! Vultures.
jarek83 5y ago
I visited US once and been reading a lot about the country, I also have a friend living there and some family. I live in a half-developed European country. We have a free higher level education, free healthcare if you work or someone in your family works, some very financial regulations and very strict hygiene regulations (for restaurants etc.). Guns not allowed to broad public. Visiting The States, gave me an impression that the country does not really like their residents. If you trip once in your life path, you have quite big chance that it's all done for you, and in one of the best scenarios you will end up with huge loans. Many people prefer not to go to a doctor, or not to go to study, people are not guaranteed any paid holidays etc. How this is making anyone confident? How an uncertain public can be productive? Plus super expensive plasterboard houses everywhere (however that's not unique for the US), guns to anyone and quite dirty (compared to what I'm used to see) food places. I really didn't like what I saw and I became more glad that I live in my country. Of course there no only bad things that I noticed, I do like the military effort that protects the status-quo (I wouldn't risk going to army in my country), or ease of opening a business etc. but overall balance for me was not in favour for the US.

fallingknife 5y ago

I agree with most of what you are saying, except for: > to end up a slave for the rest of your life to one of the predators One of the best parts of the US system is that you can always file bankruptcy and live to fight another day

entangledqubit 5y ago

Also, to make sure there's enough prey, let's not make financial education a requirement, in general, so people can make well reasoned choices...

bequanna 5y ago
What kind of additional financial education would you recommend? I think we are already doing a decent putting this info in front of our young. I grew up very rural and solidly lower middle class. We learned to balance checkbooks in 8th grade, had an accounting class in 11th, and a “life skills” required course that taught about budgets, loans, interest rates, credit cards, apartment leases, and so on. I am in my late 30s and everyone Ive ever mentioned this to was exposed to pretty much the same set of things before they left high school.
- entangledqubit 5y ago
  Based on my own experiences (around same age) and discussions with friends, the depth of your financial education is the exception. The checkbook one comes up a regularly, while loans and interest rates come up in the context of math classes. I guess I'd also be curious how deep those topics went. Like for apartment leases, notions of how to find out tenants rights in your area and how to push back on bad landlords. For budgets, what do you do if you can't make a budget work. Things to watch out for when considering employers and common scams. A lot of this stuff I was able to pick up over the years but if you get screwed early on it can really affect your life trajectory. Sources seem less objective than when I was learning this stuff. If you're first gen semi-wealthy - say a SWE in the valley - there's a whole other education that's necessary... I have talked to many SWEs that don't understand their comp.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

Maximum interest rates on loans have actually been found to harm low income people by depriving them of the best options available and leading them to use even worse options.

baby 5y ago

You should edit your message to include health issues and the lack of good healthcare. That'll make you homeless too.

dirk_novitzki 5y ago

Now ask yourself if it is okay that so much of the discussion of the tech world goes on a YC property.

duped 5y ago
HN is a microcosm, very little of the discussion of the "tech world" is happening here. There is a lot of open disdain for it outside of the SFBA startup bubble.
largbae 5y ago
It seems like this particular negative discussion is being allowed through. Are you saying HN is censored in YC's favor?
- codeddesign 5y ago
  I wouldn’t say that, but the mods do certainly pick and choose - similar to Twitter.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I've seen the mods take a pretty hands-off stance when YC (or its companies) are being criticized. I think it's a stated policy and I've generally felt they live by it. (If they didn't, I suppose I couldn't necessarily tell for sure, but based on what I see them "let stand", I think they do.) They're human and imperfect, but they don't seem to do much "home cooking" from what I can tell. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27438258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27438258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400556
    - abernard1 5y ago
      If I get banned/downvoted for this, so be it. But I cannot image a more naive or less aware position. This site is incredibly censored. Their mod system is very gamed with people who know how to build up credit and downvote en masse. Whether or not the founders support this behavior, it exists. There is a nasty, nasty f-in power culture that censors people along a political power axis these days. You cannot understand YC/HN without understanding this puritanical (left-wing) culture that has burrowed its way into VC backed companies.

luckydata 5y ago

the credit score is pretty much an enforcement system to ensure you're constantly in debt and most people I speak to think it's a good thing it exists. Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed and can't really think clearly about how screwed up their society is. note: I'm also an immigrant, now citizen. I get the right to complain cause I pay taxes.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> the credit score is pretty much an enforcement system to ensure you're constantly in debt No debt here and my credit score is great. You don’t have to be in debt to have a good credit score.
- iskander 5y ago
  My wife tried to buy a new car with an extremely high credit score. They wouldn't give her the auto loan because of insufficient credit history, which acts as a second undisclosed factor in loan approval. I had to co-sign with my worse (~700) credit score because I had a history with student loans, credit card consolidation loans, &c
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Yes, that’s how credit history works. You can’t expect to get a $30,000 loan at a reasonable interest rate without having at least some history of repaying smaller credit lines first. But you don’t need to go into debt to have a credit history. Anyone with a credit card who pays it off monthly is building a strong credit history despite never paying any interest. It’s standard practice to use credit cards for this reason. Credit cards also have a lot of buyer protections that debit cards and checks generally don’t.
    - michaelt 5y ago
      Being in debt for 30 days without paying any interest is still being in debt. If I owe someone $100 then I have a debt of $100, even if I've also got $100,000 in my bank account.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> It can be a lot of fun but it’s very easy to do worse than die - to end up a slave for the rest of your life to one of the predators. The US has relatively generous bankruptcy laws. Many people go through bankruptcy and rebuild their credit over several years. It’s not true that you’re a “slave for the rest of your life”. Student loans (which are much lower interest rate and nothing like these loans) can’t be discharged in bankruptcy but even those are open to modification or discharge in the event of hardship. > I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable. These are exactly the type of loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The people requesting these loans had almost certainly been denied lower interest rate loans because they were likely to go bankrupt. The alternative isn’t that these people get lower interest rates. The alternative is that they don’t get approved for any loans at all. Frankly I think that’s the best option for most of them, but that’s not really my choice to make. It’s theirs. > It’s incredible how folks, particularly in the US, have become this morally uncalibrated. The US gives people a lot of freedom to make their own choices. Still, we do have a lot of protections, but even those are delegated to individual states. In fact, many states do have laws that limit interest rates to as low as 4-5% (bank installment loans). That doesn't mean people in those states are all entitled to cheap loans, but it does mean that anyone with poor credit can't willingly enter into high-APR loans even if they need a short float until their next payday.

ahallock 5y ago
My friend has gone through bankruptcy twice. It was a breeze both times. Paid a court fee and had to go through a simple online course. I wish there weren't such a stigma because companies do this all the time.
- codeddesign 5y ago
  Are you referring to company bankruptcy or personal? Company is easy, personal is extreme.
  - ahallock 5y ago
    Personal. What's extreme? My friend (or me if you think I'm doing that joke) is rebuilding their credit now. They discharged a bunch of medical and credit card debt.

coding123 5y ago

It is a country that has given only a voice to those in power too. I wonder if that plays into it. We pretend that everyone has access to it but the truth is far from that.

deleted 5y ago

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kirse 5y ago

There's a happy medium with debt. Dave Ramsey takes a conservative approach in that he prefers saving your entire stack before buying something, I personally like to keep (total debt < net worth), with some consideration for liquidity risk thrown in. If I lost my job could I be a free man or am I buried and sweating? Others take that multiplier even further and sometimes luck out. On one hand debt causes issues for those who lack knowledge, but on the other hand it allows a great degree of near-term accelerated growth and societal load-balancing. The fact that society enables folks to collectively trust others to pay their debts is why we're not still stuck with a barter economy and the inherent inefficiencies of a "trust-less" economic approach. So much of present growth and fruitfulness is rooted in the future faith that others will make good on their promises (debt). Debt is a great thing in moderation.

emodendroket 5y ago
The case for debt is clear enough with a home, a car, or a business investment. Hard to imagine feeling anything but embarrassment or frustration at paying off a television years after you got it.
- alkot89 5y ago
  What is the difference other than a psychological one? Especially when you use car as an example. A car will probably depreciate just like a TV. It comes down to whether the terms are good. I have purchased TVs and computers on for 0 or very low APR because I had better things to do with the cash. I have no problem paying $4000 2 or 3 years in the future for a TV I have had the whole time - it beat the alternative.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    A car has obvious practical utility if you live in a country where a car is the only way to get around. In many places it's basically essential to having a basic life where you get to your job, and so on. A television has comparatively little such practical utility, and the downsides to setting your sights on a cheaper one are much easier to live with. The value of a car is also substantially greater (making a cash purchase less practical) and your odds of recovering a substantial portion of the purchase price through resale are much better (indeed with a TV you'll likely pay to get rid of it).

godot 5y ago

IMO debt is a complicated topic -- One could criticize debt as traps for the poor, one could also criticize that the rich can use debts to maximize leverages / avoid taxes. Is debt something you don't want to get into? If so then why are the rich taking advantages of them? Does that mean you should prevent the poor from getting in debt? Is that not even worse -- gating them from education, home ownership, etc.? Is the problem then that education and housing cost too much? Or is the issue really proper education for the poor on what debt and how much debt they can afford? More rules and regulations to prevent them from getting debt "too easily"? Is that more gate-keeping against the poor then? I don't have answers to any of these and I don't have a perspective. Just wondering out loud.

emodendroket 5y ago
I don't think it's controversial to say that the kind of debt the rich would use has rather different terms than a payday loan.

whiskyant 5y ago

In the US, you can also declare bankruptcy and wipe out almost all debt (except punitive debt). In some countries, debt follows you forever and even gets passed to your family when you die.

bitcharmer 5y ago
I'd rather live in a system without the institution of bankruptcy and enjoy life with almost zero risk of this happening. If you're an average American you start getting into debt very early in your life. This is not how young people should be entering adult lives. What you Americans think is normal, really isn't.
- vivekd 5y ago
  not american, canadian, but it' hard to avoid it here, most people wouldn't tbe able to get a car, university education or home without some form of debt. It does have a very negative impact on our society I'll admit that It's normal for people here to enter their adult lives with between 20 to 80 k of debt from university
- frockington1 5y ago
  It's also what propels Americans into a higher standard of living than anywhere else. At a young age I bought a couple investment properties with an enormous amount of debt. Now I'm living a very nice life with little to worry about. Debt is a tool just like a hammer is. Don't be yourself in the head with it, use it to make your life better
  - bitcharmer 5y ago
    > higher standard of living than anywhere else. Have you by any chance heard of places like Switzerland or Monaco? Even Germany beats USA in terms of poverty and malnutrition among children.
  - martin8412 5y ago
    Standard of living isn’t really comparable between people. Most people in Western Europe live really nice lives without the need to buy pointless junk

orangepurple 5y ago

> Along with bullshit like making options trading available to kids Have you tried to open an options trading account? There are usually multiple levels of authorization and LOTS of e-paperwork to fill out explaining your age, financial situation, and financial education.

mmaunder 5y ago
Have you any idea what options are intended for? Yes I've opened an account and it's a series of checkboxes. There's no "LOTS of e-paperwork". You clearly have not opened an account, or you're being disingenuous. It's literally you promising that you're an experienced trader and done. Think Alex Kearns, the 20 year old RobinHood trader who was trading options, and said in his suicide note that he didn't know what he was doing, was fully vetted? Options are unbelievably complex. 99.9% of traders don't even know what Black Scholes is and can't read financials. They're exotic instruments used as a hedging strategy against black swan events as part of a much larger portfolio, and the hedging strategy is designed to lose continuously for a decade if needed. It's become a casino that lets kids make cheap short term bets against a stock making big moves, for a price far lower than the underlying asset. But the trouble with options is this: With stock you're betting on one thing: Stock goes up. That's it. With options you have to predict direction, timing, magnitude, and a wrong bet is guaranteed to lose 100% of your investment immediately on expiry. No riding it out. We've had a huge bull market. When the market turns, and it always does, and the suicides start, and the stories of ruined families emerge, then the post-mortem will begin and we'll all heal together and, in time, we'll forget about the victims, as we always do. But their lives will remain in ruin. And the predatory cycle will repeat. As it always has.
- pishpash 5y ago
  Heard a human-interest story on local radio praising the pandemic child tax credit. Most said they paid their mortgage, bought food, etc., but one said they spent it on stocks and cryptocurrency. Yeah that's not going to end well.
  - hindsightbias 5y ago

mytailorisrich 5y ago

High APR is quite reasonable for very short term loans. E.g. 36% APR must be around 3% a month, which does not sound unreasonable for a one month loan. Here in the UK credit cards are very commonly at circa 20% APR. What's important is to mandate detailed and clear information so that consumers understand what the rate exactly means and what the consequences or not repaying quickly are before they sign up. Then it's a personal choice and responsibility.

smorgusofborg 5y ago
3% a month is not reasonable by past metrics. Utility companies like heating oil that didn't want to loan money used to charge 0.5-1.5% per month after the grace period back when normal mortgage rates were ~7% (APY) and car loans more like 11%(APY). This is simply being in the business of gouging people who will end up needing to carry loans over and are better off having bad credit but never really have a point of change where they realize they need to declare bankruptcy or take other financial advice.

leeoniya 5y ago

> debt is probably one of the velociraptors. you probably mean Utahraptor; velociraptors were rather smallish, contrary to what the movies would have you believe. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Dromie_scale.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Dromie_s...

TheDong 5y ago
I think in this case velociraptor is correct. The parent comment is not talking about the real dinosaurs, but rather making an analogy to the fictional creatures in the movie, which means the terminology of the movie is correct since that's the context. The pedantic point would be "the movie meant Utahraptor" or such, but not that the parent commenter did.
mmaunder 5y ago
Today I learned. Thanks. :-)

halayli 5y ago

Agreed with your sentiment. It's scary easy to fall down and go from ok living style to becoming homeless. But on the other hand, healthy debt is what grows the economy and it's a necessity. There should be more regulation / laws toward loan grants and far more regulation toward APR. One thing for sure is that the system cannot favor lenders over borrowers or vice versa because failure on either side results in collapsing the system.

heavyset_go 5y ago

There's a reason many religions have a lot to say about usury. Abrahamic religions have debt jubilees in their religious texts during which slaves were freed and debts were forgiven[1]. [1] https://theconversation.com/the-debt-jubilee-an-old-testament-solution-to-a-modern-financial-crisis-11816 https://theconversation.com/the-debt-jubilee-an-old-testamen...

oa335 5y ago

I highly recommend “Debt: The First 5000 Years” by late anthropologist David Graeber. He does a good job of highlighting the oddities of our existing financial system by comparing it to others throughout human history.

abernard1 5y ago

> I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable. Look up usury folks. This is it. Debt that is intentionally structured so that it can never be repaid and keeps the borrower harnessed to the cart. This is Brazil or Mexico. Or payday loans. It's emphatically not America at large unless you live in SF. Please leave your bubble.

callmeal 5y ago
>This is Brazil or Mexico. Or payday loans. It's emphatically not America at large unless you live in SF. Payday loans are America at large. And don't forget Credit Cards rates.
- abernard1 5y ago
  > And don't forget Credit Cards rates. You mean those 18 month 0% APR rates for credit balance transfers? The US has huge rates for long term debt, but this is silly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

int_19h 5y ago

One thing that I've always found interesting is that, historically speaking, usury is very consistently frowned upon, even across societies that are otherwise very different. What more, the interest limits were usually far harsher than anything that we have today. One can't help but wonder if our society being so deviant from the historical norm is evidence of its long-term unsustainability.

heartbeats 5y ago
That's true, but the usury back in the day was usually about loans to individuals. These days, you can bankrupt out of it. Traditionally, the Catholic Church has made a distinction between loans ultimately backed by an individual's ability to sell their labor for money (mutuum loans), and loans ultimately backed by assets (societas loans). For societas loans, such as a non-recourse mortgage or a business loan, there is no regulation whatsoever. This is just equivalent to moving property around. For mutuum loans, these are considered as a form of slavery. If a profit is being made on it, it is illicit. The reason it's slavery is that it allows you to sell your time before you have it. If that money is spent, you are now in a position where you are being forced to work for nothing, i.e. textbook slavery. There's a good FAQ at https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-money-on-the-pill/ https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-..., but I would like to learn more about this topic. Any good books?

thisiswater 5y ago

Ironic, seeing as it's prohibited in the (expletive for emphasis)'n bible.

frockington1 5y ago
The US has a clear separation of church and state. Christian Values != Christian Laws

Jach 5y ago

If the US is Jurassic Park, what was the place you came from?

xwdv 5y ago
The Matrix.
john_moscow 5y ago
You'd be surprised, but many Western European countries have a concept of being decent, sense of duty, etc. While the modus operandi in the U.S. seems to be "go for it, as long as you can get away without getting jailed or sued". On the other hand, the European culture pushes back quite heavily towards fitting in and against entrepreneurship, so neither of them is perfect.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  > On the other hand, the European culture pushes back quite heavily towards fitting in and against entrepreneurship, so neither of them is perfect. I've lived in Europe (a few different countries) over 40 years. What your saying is simply not true.
  - john_moscow 5y ago
    Lived in Western Europe for a while. Most innovative small businesses I've seen involved fudging the numbers in some way to get government grants.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    Then where are all of the innovative companies? Europe has a massive drain brain problem because it absolutely does not reward innovation in any business sense.
bitcharmer 5y ago
I'm guessing they are from some place where people can live their lives without having to worry about that as much. Europe?

bombcar 5y ago

Easy fix - forbid usurious loans that people are personally liable for. Only allow repossession of a actual asset in the case of failure to pay - and suddenly all these go away.

IAmGraydon 5y ago

Interest is the counterbalance of risk. One only exists because of the other. That’s all there is to it. People are free to use both sides of that equation to their benefit or to their peril. Your argument is simply that we should protect people from themselves, and I would strongly disagree. You’re an immigrant - what did you come here for?

fourstar 5y ago

> Look up usury folks For anyone actually interested in "looking up usury", I highly recommend: A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind Note: you can't buy it on Amazon. Surprise surprise. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-history-of-central-banking-and-the-enslavement-of-mankind-stephen-mitford-goodson/1120520068?ean=9781912759200 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-history-of-central-bankin...

deleted 5y ago
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ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

You are correct. When I got married, I brought in a lot of personal credit card debt, and we ended up using our wedding gift money to pay it off. It was extremely humiliating. Since then, I have lived quite frugally, and avoided all personal debt; paying off credit cards in total, each month. By the time we were ready to purchase a house, our credit was sky-high, and getting a decent mortgage rate wasn’t difficult. Our house is tiny. We live in a middle-class neighborhood. No Teslas on our block. I also saved between 25-40% of my income in as many ways as possible, including some fairly decent funds. I have habitually avoided debt, and lived quite humbly, my entire adult life. I have never wanted for anything, and have always been able to afford top-shelf equipment for my software development work, but I suspect that a lot of folks here, would sneer at my life. Good thing, too. When I left my job of almost 27 years, and started looking for work, I learned that no one wants to work with “olds.” That too, was humiliating, and infuriating. In fairly short order, I just threw in the towel. I won’t go where I’m not wanted. My savings allowed me to set up a small corporation to buy equipment and software, while I pursued my “dream job,” of working for free. I am working with a 501(c)(3), giving them software that would make a lot of “big league” corporations green with envy. I have the skills and experience to make others a lot of money, but my grey hair is so terrifying, that no one pays attention to my qualifications. I quickly learned to just avoid the agita. NPOs are grateful for whatever they can get, and I am appreciated. I couldn’t be happier.

mmaunder 5y ago
The desire and pressure to consume conspicuously is something embedded in US culture, much like smoking was. Make it rain. Just don't tell me what my APR is in the morning. The amount of discipline required to save and defer gratification is enormous, and it is a continuous effort, particularly in this country. You are one of the few. One of the brave. Congratulations!
john_moscow 5y ago
>I have the skills and experience to make others a lot of money, but my grey hair is so terrifying, that no one pays attention to my qualifications. You need to position yourself as a consultant with a clearly defined area of expertise, your own site, blog, etc. A salaried employee these days is first and foremost a team monkey hired to please the boss, and only then a skilled professional. When you need someone with actual expertise, you hire them transactionally to solve the problem and keep them on a separate frequency from the usual chicken coup business.

xwolfi 5y ago

I'm an immigrant from France in Hong Kong, another predatory capitalist jurisdiction, and even here it's still bounded by some logic. Payday loans are really frowned upon, I think there's something in Chinese societies, just like the French one I come from, that prevent people to fully enslave themselves in silly debt on the same massive scale as the US. And kids can trade somewhat here, at least every child has a stock account managed by his parents, the national sport being speculative trading here, so we ARE the jungle too. We're discussing a bankrupcy low, which I think would put the final nail in the predatory coffin - in the last few years I've seen the bank evolve from full-on anti-client predators to finally proposing Debit cards !!! But nobody in France, or in Hong Kong, would take a 30-year student loan. It seems nearly possible in the U.S., at the start of your life. How can they do that to each other, ofc kids are stupid and think college is about "the college experience" that the loan makers pushed via financing movies about it and won't choose the local one with good enough teachers that cost nothing and move on. I think they should really close the ivy league schools, opt out of Shanghai ranking, forbid foreigners - just like France does involuntarily (no top school, Shanghai snubs us, foreigners don't care about education in the French language) which ends up with cheap colleges for local kids with good enough teachers. But admittedly poorer research funding, but I never understood why we need to learn corporate finance or java enterprise deployment or heart surgery from researchers writing theoretical papers ONLY.

florin_g 5y ago

As an immigrant (of 27 years) I can tell you that the USA is not Jurassic Park enough (Is that a good metaphor?). The monsters keep me on the edge. It is my job to watch for the traps. I am being lied left and right, in many ways, including companies your kind empower. Everyone wants my money. I fell and got back on my feet. I am ordinary and I am thankful. I am a parent to my own children - as for me, a big daddy is the worst that can happen to me.

refurb 5y ago

Disagree strongly. I’ve lived in places that ban payday loans and it just goes underground. What you’re approach is, is to just han things because “people are too dumb to make good choices”. I’d prefer not to live in a society like that. And I’m kinda surprised you left out mortgages. The US has far less mortgage debt than other Western countries. Sure they don’t take on student loans, but they seem happy to take on massive mortgages.

heartbeats 5y ago
Illegal loans are harder to collect on. Sure, you have mob tactics, but there's a limit on how far it can go.
- refurb 5y ago
  You’d be surprised. Singapore has a massive problem with illegal loans. And that’s a country with a pretty strict police force.

varelse 5y ago

It's even better when talk of forgiving student loans triggers the sorts that were fortunate enough to pay them off on their own to decry that as some sort of giveaway the victims of these practices don't deserve. I mean it's great to pay your way out of debt but the game is rigged exactly as you state. And I deeply wonder about the hidden costs of having so much of our population saddled with this debt. No proof but I'll bet it outweighs the cost of canceling that debt not that we'll ever know.

bitcharmer 5y ago

You hit the nail on the head. It's terrifying how many Americans on this thread defend this despicable system as something normal and expected.

horns4lyfe 5y ago
It’s terrifying that people in this thread think economies built on debt and usury is a uniquely American system. These types of posts are basically just turning into reddit
ransom1538 5y ago
This isn't America. Here is season 6 ep01 of an ENTIRE reality show series in England collecting money from people not paying debts [many of them payday loans]. In England they just walk into your home and start taking things. In Dubai they put debtors in prison. Isreal is covered in payday loans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6yBiasqMnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6yBiasqMnM https://www.detainedindubai.org/post/the-truth-about-leaving-a-debt-behind-in-dubai https://www.detainedindubai.org/post/the-truth-about-leaving... https://www.jpost.com/special-content/the-fall-of-payday-loans-in-israel-597941 https://www.jpost.com/special-content/the-fall-of-payday-loa...
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  Crippling student loans or medical bankruptcy does not exist in UK or any other European country, so that's a pretty bad comparison. I was not referring to just payday loans.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    It’s terrifying how many Europeans come out and defend payday loans and pretend their system where it’s more difficult to declare bankruptcy is somehow better than the US debt system.
    - bitcharmer 5y ago
      Where did you see Europeans defending payday loans?

8ytecoder 5y ago

One can argue that it's because student loans are easy to get, that there are so many spurious universities preying on students. I wouldn't really disagree with that. Let me share a different perspective. I couldn't get a student loan. They don't make it easy to get student loans in my country. Very few are alloted by public banks and those go to the managers' favorites. Because of the lack of a collateral, private banks don't every try - too much risk. My parents had to sell the only property we had - our house - to send me to college. I don't know if that is a better situation to be honest. I'd have gladly gone into debt to let my parents keep their home. And the best part is that education wasn't even expensive for me - esp with the govt scholarship. But even that little money was a huge expense for my family. I know so many other fellow students who had a similar story. It's hard to imagine how many other families could have been lifted if they were given an opportunity like I had.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Glad you mentioned usury, a sin in every major religion, once illegal in the u.s. until a quirk in the law allowed it to flourish. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1398&context=articles https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer...

samstave 5y ago

If I could give you all my karma points, I would. I have made the exact comment to many over the years and I hope that more people such as yourself are as eloquent and succinct in conveying this point. XO

kortilla 5y ago

Most debt in the US can be discharged through bankruptcy. Student loans that are bankruptcy proof are a gift from the government in the last 30 years. The entire tone of your post would be different if you realized that it’s like the game Jurassic Park, not the movie, because you can start over whenever you lose. The way to win in the US is lots of tries, not guaranteed wins.

noduerme 5y ago

Coming from an immigrant family myself which stressed savings and frugality above all, and who even with basic literacy and no formal education understood that debt was a trap, and that under no circumstances should you ever borrow money, I wonder what's wrong with 5th+ generation Americans who think they can get something for nothing. Not to say anything about predatory lenders, who all belong in hell right next to the people selling miracle cures for Covid, but come on. The only reason there are so many people who fall for these traps is that the economy has grown and grown thanks to the endless influx of immigrants who create value. Left to their own devices, without immigrants who work and save, Americans would end up an impoverished banana republic within one generation.

darawk 5y ago

> It’s sprung when you’ve lost your job, are vulnerable and are about to become homeless. I mean, I think you can call this a trap, or you can call it a life raft. If you take away the option of debt, the option that remains is homelessness. I'm not really sure its fair to call that a trap. If there is a trap there, it's the fact that the person was in a position to become homeless in the first place. Not that some lender offered them a temporary respite.

neuronic 5y ago
If the option to debt is homelessness maybe think about that system for a second as opposed to what society is capable of providing if you let it. Predatory corporations rule America today so the Jurassic Park comparison is quite apt. There is very solid middle ground in a social market economy. We built societies as a construct to support the people living in them, but America is all about competition and individuals. There is barely any sense of community left unless media frames it like a sports event (team blue vs. team red or whatever).

bennysomething 5y ago

You are free not to get into consumer debt. Maybe educating kids to stay the hell away from consumer debt would be a good idea. Not all debt is bad. It allows businesses to function and to go grow. We can see the effects of trying to have debt free societies in Islamic countries, it stunts economic growth. Student debt in America is another thing, not allowing bankruptcy in this situation is horrendous.

streamofdigits 5y ago
Any argument starting with "you are free not to..." invariably misses the point. Yes, freedom and individual responsibility are important. No, you cannot build a sane society exclusively on those. People don't have infinite time and knowledge to identify all the things, behaviors, products, services that "they are free not to choose". They can't read all the legalistic fine print designed by professionals to deceive and obfuscate while keeping them unaccountable. This is particularly problematic as the "freedom principle" gets applied differentially in sectoral silos: When you go to the supermarket, you don't have to choose what will not kill you. Ditto when you select a car, a medical procedure or drug. Why should the financial sector (or the tech sector for that matter, as the two increasingly merge) be any different? When people are increasingly data mined, algorithmically and behaviorally goaded to overconsumption patterns, instant gratification, addiction etc. the argument that they "are free to choose" is more than hollow. Until the US (and imitators) address this moral rot at the core of its socioeconomic system it will be rolling from crisis to crisis. This will only open the door for worse alternatives. Individual responsibility should only be invoked when the individuals concerned have all the required information and ability and can be reasonably expected to excercise that agency given their context across the entire spectrum of economic interactions.

janeroe 5y ago

> As an immigrant I can tell you... Being an immigrant, of course, makes you an expert.

cromka 5y ago
Being an immigrant gives you an edge of being more critical towards the country you reside in, for having been raised differently and thus instinctively noticing things that natives otherwise have been normalized to ignore.
- janeroe 5y ago
  In theory. In practice I see too many comments that use the phrase ("as an immigrant") as a way to turn their opinion (not always very smart) into some kind of fact. Look at the parent comment, it's not in the form "in my opinion as an immigrant". It's "as an immigrant I can tell you" as if that's something objective. Well, I'm not an American and I can't tell you that. Quite the opposite, in my opinion his comment is rubbish.

dncornholio 5y ago

Don't forget credit cards. They make you spend money you don't have. Bringing you in with benefits you should've had in the first place (extended warranty etc).

Cort3z 5y ago

Not to mention "credit rating" which is capitalism's answer to the communist "social rating". Don't get me wrong, I much prefer capitalism, but it has some really dark sides.

CTDOCodebases 5y ago

Even if you are able to circumvent all this the only way at them moment to protect your savings is to borrow money and invest it in real estate or whatever.

brightball 5y ago

I helped a kid at my church get out of his title loan. I knew it was bad but when I saw the actual amount I wanted to hit something. 212%!!!! Vultures.

jarek83 5y ago

I visited US once and been reading a lot about the country, I also have a friend living there and some family. I live in a half-developed European country. We have a free higher level education, free healthcare if you work or someone in your family works, some very financial regulations and very strict hygiene regulations (for restaurants etc.). Guns not allowed to broad public. Visiting The States, gave me an impression that the country does not really like their residents. If you trip once in your life path, you have quite big chance that it's all done for you, and in one of the best scenarios you will end up with huge loans. Many people prefer not to go to a doctor, or not to go to study, people are not guaranteed any paid holidays etc. How this is making anyone confident? How an uncertain public can be productive? Plus super expensive plasterboard houses everywhere (however that's not unique for the US), guns to anyone and quite dirty (compared to what I'm used to see) food places. I really didn't like what I saw and I became more glad that I live in my country. Of course there no only bad things that I noticed, I do like the military effort that protects the status-quo (I wouldn't risk going to army in my country), or ease of opening a business etc. but overall balance for me was not in favour for the US.