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You conveniently left out the part where credit cards offer ... credit. Essentially quick loans upto a limit with zero collateral. If the govt. banned credit c

You conveniently left out the part where credit cards offer ... credit. Essentially quick loans upto a limit with zero collateral. If the govt. banned credit cards, you will then ask why poor people can't get credit. They will then go to payday loans and loan sharks. Remember, nobody forces you to use credit cards. Also, the US is also not the top country for either credit card usage or possession. Some European countries top the US. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit_cards/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit... > We are not in the 60s anymore. A cashless payment system does not need debt. Right, when I lived in EU briefly, I remember the insane complex and costly bank accounts. Nothing comes for free. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/savings-europeans-hit-out-at-banks-for-not-passing-on-higher-rates.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/savings-europeans-hit-out-at... https://www.reddit.com/r/eupersonalfinance/comments/10usczr/why_are_eu_banks_so_painful_and_bad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/eupersonalfinance/comments/10usczr/... > EU banks also have many fees... To get a contactless debit card - there is a fee. Use your contactless debit card and pay a 1% fee on every purchase. Use your debit card in another EU country and get a 5% foreign transaction fee added on top. There is no checking account interest paid to you. You need to have a minimum balance. etc. Absolutely terrible service.

eru 3y ago
> If the govt. banned credit cards, you will then ask why poor people can't get credit. Or alternatively, poor people would get their credit more from alternative providers. Like payday loans or pawnshops, or even loan sharks. Those alternative sources of credit have exactly the same problem with shady collectors. The article alludes to that, but decides to focus on credit card debt. The article also implies that perhaps regulation that encourages banks to offload credit card debt from their balance sheet might be to blame. If you instead had regulations that encouraged banks to keep credit cards on their balance sheets, and/or to make it so that debt collection agencies have to keep mentioning the co-branded sponsors (like Apple and Amazon etc), then collectors might have more of an incentive to be less shady to protect the reputation of established brands. Reputation of established brands is very, very valuable, and does not require a lot of paperwork or bureaucracy to self-enforce. So that might actually be a better fix than enshrining yet more 'customer rights' in law, that only the literate classes who know how to navigate bureaucracy can actually enjoy.
TheDong 3y ago
> credit cards offer credit. Essentially quick loans upto a limit with zero collateral You say this like it is an unequivocal good, but I don't think it necessarily is. The world functioned before it was common to have instance frictionless access to a no-collateral high-rate loan. Also, may I remind you these are for-profit loans, and the very article we're commenting under is about how they are disproportionately used to shake down poorer people. I'm sure you can twist numbers in either way to say credit cards are net good or net bad for poor people, but it's not unquestionably good at the very least. > Remember, nobody forces you to use credit cards. Except two factors realistically do encourage you to. Merchants generally charge fixed prices regardless of whether you pay with credit/debit/cash. That price includes their expected credit card fee overhead, so because everyone else pays with a credit card, the price is higher. You pay that higher price whether you use a card or not, and only get the points/miles/cash back/whatever if you also use a credit card. Secondly, credit scores force me to use a credit card. For some reason, private companies control my credit score, and my salary, savings, etc have no bearing on it. Originally, I refused to use credit cards since I find them an unethical tool to transfer money from the poor to the rich, and so I had no credit score. When I went to rent an apartment, the landlord checked my credit score, and then could legally turn me away for not having one. Jobs I applied for checked my credit score, and could legally reject me. I feel like the private credit agencies, and how widely credit scores are used, has in fact forced me to use a credit card, or else run the risk of each landlord running a credit check and then turning me away.
- fragmede 3y ago
  > You say this like it is an unequivocal good, but I don't think it necessarily is. The world functioned before it was common to have instance frictionless access to a no-collateral high-rate loan. The world also functioned before we had fractional reserve banking, but somewhere along the way we realized it's better to have it than not. It doesn't have to be an unequivocal good for it to be preferable, on balance, to living without. It's hard to do an apples to apples comparison, but there are countries where there aren't credit cards like in the US, and they are poorer for it. Giving that a proper examination would require a far larger comment box than is here. You can choose to opt out of the system. It requires a lot of work (and poverty) but the underground economy doesn't run credit checks.

eru 3y ago

> If the govt. banned credit cards, you will then ask why poor people can't get credit. Or alternatively, poor people would get their credit more from alternative providers. Like payday loans or pawnshops, or even loan sharks. Those alternative sources of credit have exactly the same problem with shady collectors. The article alludes to that, but decides to focus on credit card debt. The article also implies that perhaps regulation that encourages banks to offload credit card debt from their balance sheet might be to blame. If you instead had regulations that encouraged banks to keep credit cards on their balance sheets, and/or to make it so that debt collection agencies have to keep mentioning the co-branded sponsors (like Apple and Amazon etc), then collectors might have more of an incentive to be less shady to protect the reputation of established brands. Reputation of established brands is very, very valuable, and does not require a lot of paperwork or bureaucracy to self-enforce. So that might actually be a better fix than enshrining yet more 'customer rights' in law, that only the literate classes who know how to navigate bureaucracy can actually enjoy.

TheDong 3y ago

> credit cards offer credit. Essentially quick loans upto a limit with zero collateral You say this like it is an unequivocal good, but I don't think it necessarily is. The world functioned before it was common to have instance frictionless access to a no-collateral high-rate loan. Also, may I remind you these are for-profit loans, and the very article we're commenting under is about how they are disproportionately used to shake down poorer people. I'm sure you can twist numbers in either way to say credit cards are net good or net bad for poor people, but it's not unquestionably good at the very least. > Remember, nobody forces you to use credit cards. Except two factors realistically do encourage you to. Merchants generally charge fixed prices regardless of whether you pay with credit/debit/cash. That price includes their expected credit card fee overhead, so because everyone else pays with a credit card, the price is higher. You pay that higher price whether you use a card or not, and only get the points/miles/cash back/whatever if you also use a credit card. Secondly, credit scores force me to use a credit card. For some reason, private companies control my credit score, and my salary, savings, etc have no bearing on it. Originally, I refused to use credit cards since I find them an unethical tool to transfer money from the poor to the rich, and so I had no credit score. When I went to rent an apartment, the landlord checked my credit score, and then could legally turn me away for not having one. Jobs I applied for checked my credit score, and could legally reject me. I feel like the private credit agencies, and how widely credit scores are used, has in fact forced me to use a credit card, or else run the risk of each landlord running a credit check and then turning me away.

fragmede 3y ago
> You say this like it is an unequivocal good, but I don't think it necessarily is. The world functioned before it was common to have instance frictionless access to a no-collateral high-rate loan. The world also functioned before we had fractional reserve banking, but somewhere along the way we realized it's better to have it than not. It doesn't have to be an unequivocal good for it to be preferable, on balance, to living without. It's hard to do an apples to apples comparison, but there are countries where there aren't credit cards like in the US, and they are poorer for it. Giving that a proper examination would require a far larger comment box than is here. You can choose to opt out of the system. It requires a lot of work (and poverty) but the underground economy doesn't run credit checks.