The older I get, the more I realize holidays are scams.
Don’t fall prey.
Every Christmas season that comes and goes, I’m further reminded that if none of the commercials we see existed, if Amazon wasn’t constantly shoving cheap Chinese bullshit down your throat, and if people actually thought about the things that brought them joy in life, we wouldn’t have 25% of the commercialist bullshit that comes along with what originally was a religious holiday.
Bake some Christmas treats and call your grandma. That’s the real Christmas shit.
Predatory lending is one of those things at least one party should be against…
But lots of those corporations donate to both parties these days, so it won’t happen until people start treating primaries as the important part of our electoral system.
It’s not enough to just show up in the general and settle for anyone that doesn’t have your favorite letter next to their name. That’s better than nothing, but it’s just not enough these days. Democracy isn’t easy, if it is, it likely means it’s not working
Predatory lending is part and parcel to price gouging.
How the hell else are Americans covering the gaps in their income to cover for massively increased costs from “inflation” (cough price gouging cough)? They’re turning to easily accessible credit, even if the terms are bad. Why? Because the average American has a sixth grade reading level and isn’t competent enough in math to understand high interest rates and how debt can compound over time.
I’m in literal poverty with terrible credit score and I get credit offers all the fucking time. They always have terrible rates.
I don’t think consumers actually can bear the increase in costs, and that the business groups and credit companies know that and are all banking on that being the case, so their profits can keep increasing and they can keep steadily squeezing the working class.
I mean, what are people gonna do?
Starve or put $1k on a credit that will take 5k to eventually pay off?
A cynic would say the main reason Biden only did $600 in COVID relief is lots of the parties donors invest heavily in debt. It’s hard to beat 20% interest when you’re the one collecting it. There’s no greater investment opportunities, but the game is over if everyone has enough to live off of.
Even just them paying some of it down early drastically reduces their profits long term. If every American just geot another 1k and paid down credit cards, it could be billions of lost interest.
The article says there’s almost a trillion of it by now. It’s an absolutely mind boggling amount of money we’re talking about. Throwing a couple million to both parties is comparitively nothing to what they’re making.
Americans have been living paycheck to paycheck since the 1980s.
It will trickle down eventually right Ronald Reagan?
It should be illegal to charge compound interest, and the highest a person should ever have to pay is 10% of the total borrowed. So $100 is $110 back, max.
Then what’s to stop people from borrowing money and waiting until the amount they have to pay back is less than what they borrowed due to inflation?
What’s to stop people from borrowing money and waiting until they die?
Forfeitures. Credit ratings.
I guess nothing. Make things cheaper.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid
Greedy Billionaires aren’t complicated.
No, but economics are.
They’re complicated by manipulation. I wonder who is doing the manipulating?
Kill the billionaires.
I hate this argument.
What happened to being an adult and not signing your name to stupid shit you can’t afford?
Predatory business practices.
Compound interest has been a thing since the Babylonians, 2,000BC, and they understood it from clay tablets.
If you don’t understand it 4,023 years later with a iPhone in your pocket, you’re an idiot.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but I think their point was it’s morally wrong, not confusing.
Usury was also a thing back then.
Since the 1950s, America has demonstrably engaged in dumbing down its population. You’re right, personal accountability is king, but that’s assuming you’re dealing with a populace that has critical thinking skills and not addicted to bullshit consumerism delivered by dogmatic “Free-est country on Earth” propaganda.
Predatory capitalism happened. And a system of society that doesn’t afford everyone an equal opportunity to take advantage of such a system.
$V calls LETS GOOOOOOO
How do they define paycheck to paycheck? I believe people are struggling, but I want to make sure I have the numbers right when the wonks get all mathlete with statistics.
Exactly. You could be maxing Roth and ira, drive new cars, pay on a million dollar house, and live paycheck to paycheck.
Paycheck to paycheck usually denotes all of your paycheck goes strictly towards critical expenses (food, housing, bills).
This is how they’re defining it in their study: https://www.pymnts.com/consumer-finance/2022/what-is-paycheck-to-paycheck/
It also has a logical flaw built right in: debt. If peoples’ debt is increasing … are they even succeeding in living paycheck to paycheck?? That sounds more like a plane in the process of crashing, and no one will call it a crash for the simple fact they haven’t hit ground, yet…
