Nesrie, you’ve never provided a citation in your life. You also routinely ignore when people provide verifiable third party evidence. I don’t really see the point in pretending that you’re someone who argues in good faith and provides evidence to back up their claims, when it’s patently not true.
How does it change things?
Better knowing the true cost of a loan makes it easier to compare alternatives and to pick the loan with the cheapest overall cost. Payday loans market themselves in an absolute sense “You only pay $20 back!” are instinctively more appealing than a 12 month loan where you pay e.g. $40 back.
As I said, you can’t see the wood for the trees.
@LockerK Do you understand what a question mark is? It’s used to denote a question, and it was in response to a video that suggested APR’s aren’t required for certain financial products.
Citation. What the hell are you talking about? I am talking about the video, right up there, the one that brought about this discussion. It’s her scenario. It’s her example. wth.
You’re just an asshole kedaha. If you don’t know the scenario I am talking about, it shows you put zero effort into this discussion from the start.
It’s not at all ludicrous. Transparency will help in some cases. Maybe someone will decide it would be smarter to put off that credit card payment instead of financing it with a 500% APR loan. That would be rational behavior.
But what if it’s your rent money? Or you need to fix your car to keep your job? It is absolutely certain that many poor people in dire straits will turn to these lenders regardless of the APR, or proper notifications thereof. The cost of losing your home or your job right now is greater than the consequences of this loan. That’s also rational behavior.
Transparency is an issue, but a minor one. The larger issue is the APR itself, a system designed to prey on those with no other options. Capitalism and free markets don’t necessarily have to grind the poor into powder, and this is a case where more serious legislation is needed.
You never disappoint! For your claim that financial information doesn’t change anything, because the need to borrow remains the same would be a start.
If I want to buy a house, I still need a mortgage. Your argument is because there’s a need, more information makes no meaningful difference and somehow choice never comes into it.
@Oghier debt restructuring, longer term loans with higher absolute repayments but lower APRs, credit cards, other forms of financial products. It’s not as if Payday Loans are somehow intrinsically American. They prey on desperate, hopeful and uninformed people. Are you arguing that there are no financial choices beyond payday loans for a significant proportion of Americans? The need for emergency money is a result of no savings, not an inherent inability to access financial products outside of payday loans.
Beyond that, it at the very least allows you to compare e.g. 1 week vs 2 week vs 30 day payday loans on anything beyond an absolute level. Again, any argument that this won’t change anything or give people more tools to make better financial decisions is just ludicrous.
There is a very large difference between “I need to buy a house in some future time frame” (which, you don’t - you need a place to live, and there are options) and “my car broke, there’s no public transportation, and if I can’t get to work tomorrow I’m fired”.
This would be better served in its own topic, but you’re again talking about long-term solutions that are only viable for people who already have money and have at worst passable credit. They aren’t helpful if you’re already maxing out two or three credit cards and paying minimum balances to get by every month. Those people don’t get lower APRs or additional lines of credit.
They are intrinsically American insomuch that our financial laws are written to further enrich the wealthy and our social safety nets are extremely poor for a first world country. Because yes, in many cases there are no financial choices between payday loans or eviction/repossession.
Alternately, all these poor people working two jobs should just get a no-interest loan from their parents, or dip into their no-doubt large savings accounts.
(That’s probably snarkier than you deserve, but I couldn’t help myself. I think you underestimate just how many working poor we have in the US, how poor they are and what other options exist for them. It’s quite possible, even common here to work one full-time job, one part-time job and still be below the poverty line. And in most red states, if you don’t have kids, there is literally no form of safety net for anything.)
In terms of choosing between various financial products all aimed at the same task? No there isn’t. You have a fixed pool of mortgage lenders just as you have a fixed pool of minimum notice loan lenders.
You have a fixed pool of options, and more accurate information allows you to make the best choice within that pool. Nesrie’s argument remains “If there’s a need, more information makes no difference”.
This would be better served in its own topic, but you’re again talking about long-term solutions that are only viable for people who already have money and have at worst passable credit. They aren’t helpful if you’re already maxing out two or three credit cards and paying minimum balances to get by every month. Those people don’t get lower APRs or additional lines of credit.
For Nesrie/Video’s hypothetical, if the borrower better knows the true cost of payday loans they can choose the cheapest. They may also choose other solutions such as temporary $100 or $200 loan from family/friend to tide them over until they choose a medium or long-term product. $20 back on a $200 loan (with a $20 fee) sounds a lot more appealing than borrowing a much larger amount to avoid having repeated payday loans. Again, any hypothetical can be argued but to repeat: living month to month and needing near-instant borrowing doesn’t mean individuals are inherently locked out of anything but payday loans.
Because yes, in many cases there are no financial choices between payday loans or eviction/repossession.
The UK has no shortage of payday loans (indeed, they’re at a more sophisticated and better marketed level than the US) and these frequently result in court judgements and bailiffs coming around to repossess things. Just as an FYI.
I’m not @Oghier, but I think the above is a true statement. A significant number of Americans have no access to credit on anything other than ruinous terms.
I think the point is the woman sitting on the side of the road who needs the money ASAP isn’t going to care what the APR is, only that they need the money and “intend” on paying it back in two weeks. At that point necessity is more important that APR.
“If someone needs a loan, they still need a loan. Because they need a loan”
Ok?
I also never claimed you posted the video.
There are many payday lenders with a variety of different terms. Necessity doesn’t somehow mean you can’t choose between two different payday loans to pick the best financial option, does it?
How is “If someone needs a loan, they’ll still need a loan” a point exactly? I mean, it’s a statement yes, but it’s hardly a point.
I will admit that in some parts of town there are such lenders on every street corner. I will also admit to being lucky enough to never having needed one. But I would guess that the available terms of such places don’t vary one hell of a lot. So she finds one at a 420%APR. Is that really better when in her mind this is only a two week loan?
Credit card isn’t an option. Family isn’t an option. Public transportation isn’t an option. You can’t really float checks anymore, assuming they’re not black listed from a checking account. There’s no cash to be had. No friends to borrow from. If they can’t get to work they’ll be fired. She’s going to take that loan if it’s 50% or 1000%. They tried to help solve this issue in the past by capping the interest rate to avoid the looping problem, but the knowledge of that rate doesn’t fix the car.
There are many, but the terms don’t vary enough to matter for this argument. You can only borrow from the ones in your reach, and the ones in your reach will generally all have roughly the same terms.
So, I’m on Ms. Porter’s side of the fence of all the issues. I’m a progressive through and through. But sort of rudely saying “calculate this APR for me right now” is not helpful in any sense. If she wanted to call Ms. Kraninger out that she didn’t realize that fees were important and included in APR** then she could have stopped at asking her what’s included and then called her out, not rudely had someone throw a calculator her way and ask her to do math. If doing math was a requirement for a good manager then we’d need to throw out a lot of managers.
** I guess the CFPB director has never actually had to take out a loan, lol, since that is patently obvious if you’ve ever done it even once.
