this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
108 points (94.3% liked)

News

35703 readers
2883 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world -3 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Credit reporting is an evil practise. It needs to end.

What should lender use instead to determine you are capable of paying back money you're asking to borrow from them?

[–] riskable@programming.dev 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Collateral and, historically, age, race, sex, and ethnicity. They'd also look at how well you were dressed because 100% of the time you went to the bank in-person to get a loan. Also, your bank wouldn't be far from where you lived and the local population wasn't so large that they couldn't just "ask around" the local social network to see if this man before them was upstanding enough to warrant giving them money.

Also note that people didn't need to borrow money as much as they do today. You wanted a new home appliance like an oven or refrigerator? You saved for quite some time to buy it.

There weren't as many things to spend your money on either!

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm a bit confused by your response. Are you suggesting going back to the old ways (as your description of those old ways encapsulates) or are you pointing out the shortcomings of the old ways (of which there are many)?

[–] riskable@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm just telling it like it is. The old ways were terrible! However, being local and requiring proper collateral instead of just giving n people money en mass—knowing that the percentage that default will be outweighed by the percentage that pay the loan back (and ripping people off by making them pay the interest up front)—was probably better for the economy.

Not everyone should be allowed to amass debt the way we currently allow it. Furthermore, if people couldn't get loans for school so easily (in fact, guaranteed!) then college tuition would be but a fraction of what it is today.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

However, being local

Local meaning what does local have to do with it unless you're allowing that bank to make a subjective decision about lending to you because they know you or the area? That's how we got people of color being denied loans for houses in certain areas of town via "Redlining". If we allowed this we might also have discrimination based on being LGBTQ or being an unmarried mother.

and requiring proper collateral instead of just giving n people money en mass

So if you need to get a car loan, and you don't own any assets to put forth for collateral you just don't get a car?

Furthermore, if people couldn’t get loans for school so easily (in fact, guaranteed!) then college tuition would be but a fraction of what it is today.

Furthermore, if people couldn’t get loans for school so easily (in fact, guaranteed!) then college tuition would be but a fraction of what it is today.

And college would only be available to the rich that already have money, or the middle class with assets (like a house) to borrow against. The poor, without money or assets, would be shut out entirely.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Accept the risk and pay the cost of the defaults. If lenders would have it their way, they'd only lend to people who pay back and charge them interest on it for the privilege, which would be pure economic rent.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Accept the risk and pay the cost of the defaults.

Do you honestly think any lender would stay in business very long if they did this? Especially if there were no consequences to borrowers, (such as a what exists today with a credit score hit that would prevent you from borrowing in the future) why would anyone pay back a debt?

There are problems with credit reports and credit scores, I agree. Medical debt and perhaps even student loan debt shouldn't be on there. However, throwing out the whole thing makes life for most everyone significantly worse, except the rich. The rich will do fine because they have substantial assets to use for loan collateral without any credit scores. How about you? What property would you be able to put up if you needed new car or wanted to borrow for a mortgage?

If lenders would have it their way, they’d only lend to people who pay back and charge them interest on it for the privilege, which would be pure economic rent.

You're describing borrowing before credit scores. Or at best any unsecured lending was for only very small balances, such as few hundred dollars. So no credit cards with four or five figure credit limits. Mortgage lending with a required a 20% down payment. No 20% cash? Enjoy renting. Before the Great Depression it was a required 50% down payment, and you only had 5 to 10 years to pay off the other 50% or they came and took your house and kicked you out in the street.

Oh, and we think interest rates are bad now. My parents were paying a 12% mortgage interest rate in the 1980s. Do the math on that today to see how much that would increase a monthly mortgage payment putting home ownership even farther out-of-reach of many.

This is the future you're wishing into existence, a return to the "bad old days". If you get your wish, getting ahead for the average American gets harder, not easier.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It would crash housing prices, which would be objectively good. I can't say for certain if it would be worth the other costs.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But with no ability to borrow to buy those, then cheap, houses, who would buy them and why? Sadly the answer would be: those with cash so they could rent them out.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

If houses cost less then rent could go down.

There are limits of course. Building a new house has a minimum cost, which factors into the value of existing homes. But with lower investment costs to buy a house, less pressure to make that cost back with high rent.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There in lies the confusion.

A credit score doesn’t tell a lender if you will pay back a loan. A credit score tells a lender how much off a guarantee it is to make money of lending you money.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

A credit score doesn’t tell a lender if you will pay back a loan.

Well, nothing is a guarantee in life. However, that's exactly what its designed to do. It provides the recent history of the borrower and how much debt they are carrying now to show that the borrower is capable of servicing the debt. All of the included factors go into the score. I mean, the components of the score are not a secret. Is publlished right on their website:

source

A credit score tells a lender how much off a guarantee it is to make money of lending you money.

Kind of. If the borrower is bad at paying back debts, then the lender increases the interest rate to cover the likelihood the borrow will default on the loan. Keep in mind, they aren't trying to get all of their principal back from the risky borrowing through interest before the borrower defaults. This risky borrower is pooled with other risky borrowers. The higher interest rates they all pay covers the few that default.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How about we don't build an economy on borrowing?

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm not an economist, but I'm not aware of any economic systems that work without a lending component.

Without lending that means you've got one group of people with stuff that don't need it, and another group of people with need for stuff but without stuff. Without lending there's no way for the people with needs to get stuff, and the stuff is wasted sitting without being used.

Thats the world you want to live in?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well usury is harem in Islam, so you can do it without the insane profiteering.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So your problem isn't lending, its just large profits on lending?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah pretty much. It's just, in a capitalist system (without some kind of overarching ideology shaming people into not doing it), there is no lending without profiting. Nobody is going to lend their money out of the goodness of their heart in this system.

Though mutual aid could probably solve this.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Money is credit. It's a promise that someone else will pay their labor or capital or goods in exchange.
I would like a world where the things people NEED housing, food, medical care, are provided and the things people want, they can save up money (credit) and purchase by selling what they can, labor, skills, assets.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I agree with you, but thats a wholesale change in government and society far removed from credit scores.