Political Crossfire Forums

Dude I am not going to lose any sleep over what lenders think of me. So long as I am in my current job, I don't have to worry about buying a vehicle unless I just want something for fun (like my motorcycle). In 2 years, I'll be able to pay roughly 220k cash for a house, if I choose to do so.

Its not that I can't figure out how to use credit, I don't want to use credit. I find the premise of credit flawed and a plague on this country. Funny that Europe seemingly gets on just fine without it, I imagine the US can too in 20-40 years when they figure out how f**k credit is.

I also dislike credit in alot of ways, but there is no denying its usefulness and the economic value it provides in certain situations. So rather than just not using it, I use it in ways that I think are fair and that benefit me.

My car, for instance, was 0% interest with financing. I could have bought with cash but why? That money will make more being utilized on the stock market, and I still get the car. Now what if I hadn't done that? That is plenty of stock market gains that I would have missed out on, which means I would actually have less money than if I had paid in cash.

You can and should utilize credit when it is a sensible, prudent and conservative decision. It is a very imperfect system and I despise the power that credit rating agencies have, but to not participate doesn't change anything other than negatively, for you.

For sure, I get that. I don't like credit either, and I use it sparingly. But yeah, it is good to have, and it can be financially prudent to use.

My big issue with modern credit is that, let's face it, the majority of people who use it don't understand it. They can't calculate compound interest, or even describe what it is. They can't do quick mental math to figure out the actual dollar amount of interest. And, worst of all, there are tons of institutions that are simply exploiting that ignorance, and putting people into more and more debt. I mean at least we don't have debtors prison, and we do have bankruptcy protections, but I fully agree that something has to give with this system. There needs to be more protections against predatory lenders.

In Canada, it isn't so much payday places, it is mortgage lenders that are the problem. Historic low interest rates plus cheap credit and an inflated market equals certain disaster for tons of people. I have a friend, for instance, he just bought a house for $275k. He makes $15/hr and his wife makes $19/hr. Their monthly payment is gonna be at least $1200 and they only put 10% down. If the market crashes or if something happens to one of them, they are f**k, but they still got a mortgage.