<story><title>Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-26/poverty-in-america-greater-than-statistics-indicate</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>post_break</author><text>People cannot buy a phone outright. It&amp;#x27;s that bad. We&amp;#x27;re literally financing a $500-1000 device because they can&amp;#x27;t take the hit up front. Now I&amp;#x27;m sure most people here could swing a phone tomorrow if they needed to say theirs was stolen, but you gotta think about how many people just can&amp;#x27;t. How about tires, there are places to rent tires. Financing a car? Common. 8 payments to put two front tires on your car? Seems insane, but for a lot of people in America it&amp;#x27;s either that or you keep the donut on for a few more months.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>umvi</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a well off software developer. I&amp;#x27;ve been using a $50 Nokia Lumia 520 for the past 3 years or so. When this one dies I&amp;#x27;ll likely &amp;quot;splurge&amp;quot; and buy a Nokia 2 ($100). That our I&amp;#x27;ll buy a Blu phone ($50).&lt;p&gt;I would consider my neighbors poor. They have state-subsidized rent, for example. They use food stamps. They also smoke a pack a day each. All they need to do to buy a new phone is not smoke for 5 days. Not that it matters, they all have iPhones inexplicably. It&amp;#x27;s just a viscous self-feeding cycle and I don&amp;#x27;t know how to help them break out of it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Poverty in America: Greater Than Statistics Indicate</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-26/poverty-in-america-greater-than-statistics-indicate</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>post_break</author><text>People cannot buy a phone outright. It&amp;#x27;s that bad. We&amp;#x27;re literally financing a $500-1000 device because they can&amp;#x27;t take the hit up front. Now I&amp;#x27;m sure most people here could swing a phone tomorrow if they needed to say theirs was stolen, but you gotta think about how many people just can&amp;#x27;t. How about tires, there are places to rent tires. Financing a car? Common. 8 payments to put two front tires on your car? Seems insane, but for a lot of people in America it&amp;#x27;s either that or you keep the donut on for a few more months.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zaroth</author><text>I think there’s nothing inherently wrong with spreading out payments for durable goods over the lifespan of the device, &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; if it can be done at a reason APY.&lt;p&gt;The problem with pay-as-you-go is the interest rates, penalties, fees, etc.&lt;p&gt;When AT&amp;amp;T or Apple sells me a phone with a monthly payment, I take it because it’s literally the price divided by 24 payments. Zero percent interest. No brainer.&lt;p&gt;Better debt servicing and better risk assessment and higher trust in buyers would bring down default rates and decrease APY making these programs reasonable and proper. At the extortionate rates necessary due to the extreme default rates and difficulty in collecting payments, they are terrible.</text></comment>