<story><title>Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B</title><url>https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-announces-plans-to-acquire-afterpay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shell0x</author><text>As a foreigner in Australia, I can&amp;#x27;t help but to think that Australians really don&amp;#x27;t know how to handle finances and are too irresponsible to use a credit card, so Afterpay and Zip stepped in.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s because I grew up in Europe, but &amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t buy it if you can&amp;#x27;t afford it&amp;quot; has served me well. The majority of people I know just use credit cards for the perks but never miss a full payment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Clewza313</author><text>Australia has gone 20+ years without a recession, meaning many people have grown up without ever seeing anything except full employment and house prices going up up up.  It&amp;#x27;s thus been a &amp;quot;safe bet&amp;quot; to leverage yourself up to your eyeballs to get on that &amp;quot;property ladder&amp;quot;, and while many (including myself) thought this would finally pop last year with COVID, nope, after the briefest hiccup the property market has gone even more nuts this year.</text></comment>
<story><title>Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B</title><url>https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-announces-plans-to-acquire-afterpay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shell0x</author><text>As a foreigner in Australia, I can&amp;#x27;t help but to think that Australians really don&amp;#x27;t know how to handle finances and are too irresponsible to use a credit card, so Afterpay and Zip stepped in.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s because I grew up in Europe, but &amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t buy it if you can&amp;#x27;t afford it&amp;quot; has served me well. The majority of people I know just use credit cards for the perks but never miss a full payment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>siquick</author><text>I’ve lived in Australia for 10 years and still cannot believe how flippant people here seem to about getting into debt. Tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, a mortgage covering 60% of a salary, and a leased car seem to be fairly standard for a lot of my peers. It feels like they’re all 3 missed months of salary away from having absolutely nothing. Obviously all anecdotal but still astounding and probably not too uncommon here in Sydney.</text></comment>