• Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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.