FICO to incorporate buy-now-pay-later loans into credit scores

Theoretically, credit should be used for one thing: to make more money. (not less)

However, instead of using it to buy or construct a machine to triple what you can produce in an hour, the average person is using it to delay having to work that hour at all, in exchange for having to work an hour and six minutes sometime later.

At some point, you run out of hours available and the house of cards collapses.

i.e., credit can buy time in the nearly literal sense, you can do an hour's work in half an hour because the money facilitates it, meaning you can now make more money. If instead of investing in work you're spending on play, then you end up with a time deficit.

or, e.g. you can buy 3 franchises in 3 months instead of 3 years (i.e. income from the 1 franchise), trading credit for time to make more money, instead of burning it. It'd have been nice had they taught me this in school.

> the average person is using

The "average person" is told from birth to consume as many things and experiences as possible as it if was the only thing that could give their life a meaning. The entire system is based on growth and consumption, I have a hard time blaming "the average person"

I acknowledge that such telling exists, but there is still responsibility for people choosing to listen to it. Skepticism is vital. Beyond being skeptical of what you see, it is wild to me that we don't have approximately everyone blocking all ads, cable news, most social feeds, and other such transparently manipulative shit. Advertisement especially is literally industrialized and research-based psychological manipulation to make people do things that make no sense (see what Alfred Sloan did to GM, for an early example) — it's toxic and should be absolutely avoided.

You can’t block all of it all of the time, and children (some of the most vulnerable) especially can’t.

True, and this is why you shouldn’t just hand your kid an iPad and peace out. I’m all for technology and video games for my kids, but I’m vigilant to keep my kids’ eyes away from ads. As a result, my kids aren’t foaming at the mouth for the latest and greatest toys and games which was my experience as a child.

Thing is, keeping children out of Instagram, Facebook, or whatever new social media is hyping currently will probably make them kind of weirdos in their bubble, e.g. in school. At least this would be my fear (don't have children). And good luck trying to use any of these ad-infested privacy-invading platforms while trying to avoid ads.

Learning how to stand on your own in school is good practice for doing the same thing in life. By which I’m absolutely not saying “don’t have friends” but rather, you don’t have to be like everyone else.

My kids won’t be on social media until they’re not kids anymore. If none of us take a stand, nothing ever changes.

Your kids will create hidden social media accounts that you don't know about. That's what I would have done in their situation.

Their exposure will still be much less than someone who gives them free reign and lets them sit in the livingroom staring at a phone. They won't be staring at the phone distracted while they're hanging out with the family.

Hiding things from parents is a far bigger problem than staring at a phone in a living room.