Post B0dZBASAkG64ellIPo by carstenfranke@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by carstenfranke@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B0dXFPqZFqo1eH4R5k by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T11:59:16Z
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Buying some perfume online. "Would you like an installment plan?"For a $26 purchase. If I wanted I could set up the installment plan for the $26 purchase and have it charge my credit card.Call it "micro leverage on leverage."Some puritanical grumpy voice deep in me that came from my dad is grumbling that it ought to be illegal to buy something like perfume like this. But really it shouldn't be possible for any purchase. In some ways buying food this way would be a sadder story.
(DIR) Post #B0dXZ5eM3XwIngjuQy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T12:02:48Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
Every single day there are all these offers to go into debt flying at my face. I don't even notice them anymore. And I can see easily how they could take over your life. The "offers" have a tone that makes it seem like a normal thing to do. I think we should cancel all of these debits for those who have them. Let the creditors fail and make the whole thing illegal. It's what Jesus would have done. Flip over the table. Scatter their coins and contracts and chase them out of the temple.
(DIR) Post #B0dXqErv2BPCJaGFeq by jmax@mastodon.social
2025-11-26T12:05:52Z
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@futurebird It's also what a proper biblical literalist would do. c.f. "Year of Jubilee."
(DIR) Post #B0dY6THDEXNxdLpeka by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T12:08:51Z
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I know in my core the only reason I don't have debt is because we had a little financial security growing up. And I haven't been hit by the natural and man made disasters that push people into this corner. Not about "financial planning" to the degree people think. When I was younger, more broke over draft fees nearly ruined my life. A $30 fee on a $4 purchase. I fought it. Yelled at them on the phone until they removed it. "Why would you think anyone would want this service?"
(DIR) Post #B0dYYjwEsZD7PwV9w8 by DrHyde@fosstodon.org
2025-11-26T12:13:55Z
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@futurebird one of my cards keeps trying to sell me a thing where I can choose for individual large purchases get paid off in several installments. As far as I can tell this exciting opportunity would cost me an extra monthly fee on top of the interest that would be charged for just doing that without paying the fee.So cashflow! Much financial! Wow!
(DIR) Post #B0dYnFajzQmJdtMhNY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T12:16:35Z
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@DrHyde I'm on the verge of boycotting anything that makes such offers. It's immoral. It makes me think less of them for even asking. Because if they ask someone said "yes" maybe someone HAD to say yes, and how can you be OK with making money like that? Squeezing it out of desperate people like blood. Mosquito behavior.
(DIR) Post #B0dZ2ZGj73F50vJ84m by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T12:19:18Z
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@jmax I think this is a great idea but I'm a little worried that if we started talking about it somehow Sam Altman would pop up out of nowhere and it'd only end up applying to big companies who have made a debt mess on purpose knowing full well what they were doing. And the person who was just trying to buy a box of cereal will still need to make all four installment payments or get buried in more debt. How is "too big to fail" not just Year of Jubilee." for the rich?
(DIR) Post #B0dZBASAkG64ellIPo by carstenfranke@mastodon.social
2025-11-26T12:20:52Z
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@futurebirdThe payment processor I use on my webshop started offering these payment plan things about a year ago. I was surprised, went in, turned it off. Then a few weeks ago they changed the checkout process, and bang, it was back. Even though I explicitly switched it off for my site. I had to dig in and find two more toggles. It is gone now, but they are pushing it hard. It must be incredibly profitable for them. @DrHyde
(DIR) Post #B0dZSrQKEhRCqiKoL2 by burnitdown@beige.party
2025-11-26T12:24:04Z
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@futurebird Ammon Hennacy apparently taught "credit is evil". it's a horrible trap to get caught in and it is indeed very normal for different reasons. i read somewhere that in capitalism, we're taught to want to aspire to have what rich people have, which is an unattainable goal because everything the owning class has is stolen wealth. so you get people believing that if they just have the right car, wear the right clothes, etc, they can become rich too, and in attempting to do so, they become prey to loan sharks. it's also a "dig a hole to fill it" scheme where you improve your credit score by taking on debt and then paying it back.
(DIR) Post #B0dZbTJNFnAefnBndo by bituur_esztreym@pouet.chapril.org
2025-11-26T12:25:38Z
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@futurebird @jmax alas.. can't help thinking we should always have a Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 Years,Updated and Expanded" hardcover at hand to smash the head of the potential popping-up Sam Altman or like..
(DIR) Post #B0dZoiREKAHLLuBAMy by cavyherd@wandering.shop
2025-11-26T12:28:01Z
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@futurebird I was lucky in that my mother was very savvy as a household finance manager. (My dad was...rather less so. Which may be why my mom was so fierce about it.)Every year, we got a gift certificate from Monkey Ward for keeping our bill paid up,* which she'd give to me, & point out the reason we got it.I cam out of childhood regarding consumer debt roughly as dangerous as heroin. Haven't had reason to change that assessment. >
(DIR) Post #B0darimraE8fG1ILaq by Qazm@tiggi.es
2025-11-26T12:37:52Z
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@carstenfranke @futurebird @DrHyde I feel like it's about weekly I hear something new scary about small finance in the US.(We have that in Europe too via Klarna, but usually it's no-fees-no-interest on small purchases like that.)
(DIR) Post #B0darkHO2E9HsyaEoC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T12:39:42Z
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@Qazm @carstenfranke @DrHyde "usually it's no-fees-no-interest on small purchases"We have klarna and they make this claim too. But, I just don't believe them. I assume once they net you into their system they find a way to charge a fee... somehow.
(DIR) Post #B0db224KkUnPxFNp2W by sewblue@sfba.social
2025-11-26T12:41:27Z
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@futurebird I hate debt with a passion and have successfully avoided it, outside the normal big ticket items like cars. Growing up my parents got trapped in debt. The airforce base closed where we lived and we had to move for unrelated reasons. The local housing market tanked and the house would not sell, and rents collapsed too. They racked up debt while covering 2 mortgages until the house finally sold. At the time to me as a teen the debt was an impossibly high number, and it scared me. We live waaaaay under our means so we can afford a school for dyslexia my kid. College may be cheaper if they go to a state school. But we are doing it without debt, and that is what matters.
(DIR) Post #B0dbfegX6ofF0w90Yi by Qazm@tiggi.es
2025-11-26T12:48:48Z
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@futurebird @carstenfranke @DrHyde They have an option to delay payment further and then that does charge interest, but it's a higher rate than what overdrafting a bank account here costs.
(DIR) Post #B0dcE455C4h1cl2ESW by mansr@society.oftrolls.com
2025-11-26T12:54:59Z
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@futurebird @Qazm @carstenfranke @DrHyde There's ALWAYS a fee hiding somewhere, or so I assume. If it's not listed as interest, it'll be a setup fee, and if it's not that, it's a billing fee, an admin fee, a completion fee, or the instalments somehow add up to a little more with no explanation at all. If it's not obvious how they're making money, I assume it's so bad that nobody would agree to it if they were upfront about it.
(DIR) Post #B0dd06G2P6voH741z6 by LJ@zirk.us
2025-11-26T13:03:41Z
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@futurebird my father was a child during the Depression. He was extremely leery of debt since his family lost everything overnight. His 3 financial rules have guided me my whole life:1. Pay yourself 1st (e.g. save)2. Don't buy on credit unless you can pay it off in full3. Translate a price tag into how many hours of work it costs as a way to assess something's valueBut none of this would have made much of a difference without my family's help paying for college & having no debt.
(DIR) Post #B0deSoXtR4tdh6fhce by afeinman@wandering.shop
2025-11-26T13:20:05Z
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@futurebird We used to have strong usury laws. Credit card companies got them weakened, under Reagan IIRC.Every time I see a rate over 10% it is a reminder of how corrupted our capitalism has become.
(DIR) Post #B0dhA4pqwkw2ZmpTKi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T13:50:19Z
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@akamran @Jumpmed "innovative finance products"All of it is just Bugsy and the loan sharks dressed up in the form of an app. Tale as old as time.
(DIR) Post #B0dhpzPTVb7DubTbY8 by ShiitakeToast@beige.party
2025-11-26T13:57:51Z
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@futurebird @akamran @Jumpmed As a bit of a history buff, it seems to me that our entire economy is a series of bubbles created by unregulated or deregulated finance all trying to get through the door at the same time like the Simpsons episode.
(DIR) Post #B0djzk4HbUif8OLHNI by abucci@buc.ci
2025-11-26T14:21:34Z
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@afeinman@wandering.shop @futurebird@sauropods.win An installment plan is a financial asset that can be bundled, tranched, and sold to investors. We are headed towards a future in which everyone unable to outright buy or own things will pay for everything in this way. The word "corrupted" does not seem up to the challenge of describing this.
(DIR) Post #B0dkHtcuntsRzaCK2q by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T14:25:22Z
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@abucci @afeinman
(DIR) Post #B0dkYqcZER5Jar7Nuy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-11-26T14:28:18Z
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@madrush @jmax One thing AI video *has* given me is vivid the image of his head popping out of a "skibidi?" toilet.It haunts me.
(DIR) Post #B0eAcWRom8w4zeVFWS by wendinoakland@beige.party
2025-11-26T16:27:34Z
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@futurebird I read recently about people who have loads of these buy now/pay later (BNPL) arrangements going simultaneously, leaving them in hairily uncertain financial straits. I’m so terrified by these fishhooks to consumerism, towards the ownership of some stuff? at the cheap cost of complete ruin? How can folks live with the stress?
(DIR) Post #B0eBveppuot0SkQSIa by silvermoon82@wandering.shop
2025-11-26T19:35:04Z
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@futurebird My credit card app now offers to put my groceries on an installment plan.