<story><title>Online installment loans have taken the subprime market by storm</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-29/america-s-middle-class-is-getting-hooked-on-debt-with-100-rates</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bryanlarsen</author><text>&amp;gt; $100 a month on cable TV&lt;p&gt;given that the average American spends 4 hours&amp;#x2F;day watching TV[1], that&amp;#x27;s well under $1 per hour of entertainment.   There aren&amp;#x27;t a lot of hobbies or entertainment media that are cheaper.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;186833&amp;#x2F;average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;186833&amp;#x2F;average-televisio...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mumblemumble</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t want to tut-tut the poor, but I do want to tut-tut consumer culture in general.&lt;p&gt;There are a whole lot of people who _should_ be able to afford an unexpected car repair bill, and could quite easily do so, if they weren&amp;#x27;t spending $100 a month on cable TV, $800 every other year on a high-end smartphone, $500&amp;#x2F;month on owning an SUV when a $200&amp;#x2F;mo economy car would serve just fine, etc., and put the money into a basic rainy day fund instead.&lt;p&gt;And a middle and working class that was just a little bit more frugal might create some downward pressure on prices that would, in turn, alleviate what less wealthy people need to pay on just the basics.</text></item><item><author>blhack</author><text>Okay these loans certainly sound like a bad deal, but what are people supposed to do?  Say your car breaks and you can’t get to work.  For all of us here billing out &amp;gt;$100hr or whatever your local consulting rate is, the answer is some calculus around the cost of losing your job vs the cost of fixing it.&lt;p&gt;But for MOST people, the cost of fixing it is functionally infinite.  They literally do not have even a few hundred dollars to, for instance, replace a tire.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, the interest on these is predatory, but then what are these lenders supposed to do?  Many of the people getting these loans WILL default on them.  Yes it would be great to offer these loans at a reasonable interest rate, but they are unsecured loans. The only collateral is the clients credit score.&lt;p&gt;It’s easy for all of us with our comfy tech jobs to hate on these, but to me that feels like kicking the poor while they are already down.  Yeah, they know the loan is bad.  They probably don’t have any other options.&lt;p&gt;Instead we should be looking at ways to make it so that giant unpredicted expenses don’t happen at all.  That means cheaper transportation options, cheaper access to healthcare or preventitive care, predictive diagnostics, etc.&lt;p&gt;It helps nobody to point out how foolish the poor are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reilly3000</author><text>I think the point was more that entertainment isn&amp;#x27;t really a necessity at all, even if its a &amp;#x27;good value&amp;#x27;. If entertainment is in fact a necessity, most public libraries offer an immense amount of choices of physical and digital media available for free.</text></comment>
<story><title>Online installment loans have taken the subprime market by storm</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-29/america-s-middle-class-is-getting-hooked-on-debt-with-100-rates</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bryanlarsen</author><text>&amp;gt; $100 a month on cable TV&lt;p&gt;given that the average American spends 4 hours&amp;#x2F;day watching TV[1], that&amp;#x27;s well under $1 per hour of entertainment.   There aren&amp;#x27;t a lot of hobbies or entertainment media that are cheaper.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;186833&amp;#x2F;average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;186833&amp;#x2F;average-televisio...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mumblemumble</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t want to tut-tut the poor, but I do want to tut-tut consumer culture in general.&lt;p&gt;There are a whole lot of people who _should_ be able to afford an unexpected car repair bill, and could quite easily do so, if they weren&amp;#x27;t spending $100 a month on cable TV, $800 every other year on a high-end smartphone, $500&amp;#x2F;month on owning an SUV when a $200&amp;#x2F;mo economy car would serve just fine, etc., and put the money into a basic rainy day fund instead.&lt;p&gt;And a middle and working class that was just a little bit more frugal might create some downward pressure on prices that would, in turn, alleviate what less wealthy people need to pay on just the basics.</text></item><item><author>blhack</author><text>Okay these loans certainly sound like a bad deal, but what are people supposed to do?  Say your car breaks and you can’t get to work.  For all of us here billing out &amp;gt;$100hr or whatever your local consulting rate is, the answer is some calculus around the cost of losing your job vs the cost of fixing it.&lt;p&gt;But for MOST people, the cost of fixing it is functionally infinite.  They literally do not have even a few hundred dollars to, for instance, replace a tire.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, the interest on these is predatory, but then what are these lenders supposed to do?  Many of the people getting these loans WILL default on them.  Yes it would be great to offer these loans at a reasonable interest rate, but they are unsecured loans. The only collateral is the clients credit score.&lt;p&gt;It’s easy for all of us with our comfy tech jobs to hate on these, but to me that feels like kicking the poor while they are already down.  Yeah, they know the loan is bad.  They probably don’t have any other options.&lt;p&gt;Instead we should be looking at ways to make it so that giant unpredicted expenses don’t happen at all.  That means cheaper transportation options, cheaper access to healthcare or preventitive care, predictive diagnostics, etc.&lt;p&gt;It helps nobody to point out how foolish the poor are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gruez</author><text>Just because it&amp;#x27;s cheap doesn&amp;#x27;t mean there aren&amp;#x27;t cheaper alternatives. Most people could easily replace that with a netflix subscription for $13, since they already have an internet connection.</text></comment>