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

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 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"

Credit, in this sense, is also used to solve a cash flow problem. It’s a bad sign when that credit (or Klarna Pay-in-3 style setups) is applied to basic day to day expenses like buying groceries or other necessities.

Basically the market’s answer to increasing poverty: you’re not getting paid more, so how about we give you a payment plan to spread things out?

Why does it feel different? 1: the amount of stuff we buy has increased a lot. Anybody who owns what would be considered solidly middle class in the early 1970s will feel quite poor today. 2: financial security is way down.

In the early seventies a middle class family of 6 would own a 1200 square foot house, a single car, a single TV and a single radio would be the sum total of the entertainment electronics they owned, they'd have less than a dozen outfits apiece, they'd eat out about once a month, a vacation to a neighboring state would feel like a splurge, et cetera.

But they were relatively content. 1: they were much better off than their parents and grandparents, who experienced the depression & WW2. 2: they were "keeping up with the Joneses". 3: they had a feeling of financial security due to job security and the fact that serious health events were unlikely to financially devastating.

Maybe some of that problem is about spending too much money, but it cannot be denied that housing are unaffordable and that transportation is inefficient and is a mess.

Huh? Doesn't the average American live in a city? The whole reason for accepting being squeezed in tightly with other people is so that you don't have to worry about transportation; enabling everything you could ever want and need to be found in short walking distance.

Transportation is for people in rural areas. Yes, it is expensive, but that's exactly why most people left rural areas for the city long ago.

That's the thing, a lot of Americans really don't like this idea of being squeezed in tightly. People really don't like having a shared wall. And it's not that people like these tightly squeezed lot lines, they'd prefer 1 acre lots. These tiny lots are all they can afford while still being somewhat acceptable to them about commutes. Which Americans seem to really just not care about commute times when comparing to tradeoffs on house size and not having shared walls.

And in the end, you can only buy what the cities and towns allow to have built. Which is chosen by those who live there at the time. The cities then make single family structures a requirement, have minimum setbacks and lot sizes, have rigid separations between residential and commercial spaces, etc. So even those people who would want to own an apartment over a commercial suite in what you'd consider an urban area can't make that choice because that choice is illegal.

But people act like these zoning laws just come about on their own. The thing is, these zoning laws are popular. They get put into place because that's what the people who actually vote in local elections push for. I've seen proposal after proposal in cities around me to change zoning to allow density even in limited areas get fought tooth and nail by residents. I remember a project nearby where there was a proposal to build a mixture of 2-3 unit townhouses, some single-family narrow lots, and a tiny spot of commercial for like a coffee shop on land that was currently zoned industrial. All of this connected to the bike network, a large city park and a nature preserve nearby, and good transit connection at the end of the neighborhood. The neighborhoods around fought it tooth and nail and eventually the builder walked away after trying to negotiate for a few years. Well, the land was already zoned industrial, construction broke ground months later to build warehouses. Now instead of a nice neighborhood on my bike path there's warehouses with semi-trucks rolling through all day long. Good job, NIMBYs!

Sure, it isn't coincidence that the "American Dream" has always been portrayed the sizeable house on a large acreage out in the country surrounded by white picket fences. But we're talking about the people who are choosing to cram in beside one another, but aren't bringing the services and joy that such density normally offers to go along with it.

> These tiny lots are all they can afford while still being somewhat acceptable to them about commutes.

I've lived in cities and on farms and the commute times end up being about the same if you ever have to leave your immediate community that is within walking distance. You have to drive further from the farm, sure, but the highway is surprisingly efficient. Is there some reason people are more concerned about distance than time?

The city offers a clear advantage when you are travelling short enough distances that you can walk. But, that brings us right back to wondering what you need costly transportation for? The two dangly things beneath you are right there! (Yes, I know, some people hazve disabilities, but the discussion isn't about them)

> But people act like these zoning laws just come about on their own.

Not at all. That's why we question why people are doing it. It is clearly their own choice. But why when we then hear them crying that the transportation costs are too high?

People routinely leave their community for their job all the time here. Go take a look at that map I shared earlier. Most of the people in that neighborhood probably don't work in Princeton. They probably don't even work in McKinney or Fairview. Good chance they work in North Plano, Frisco, Addison, Dallas, maybe Garland. Most people living here are probably driving about an hour to their job, each way, every day. With a lot of those people with those kinds of commutes having that take place on a tollway.

They do that because they can buy that 4-bedroom 3-bath 3-car garage ~2,400sqft with a gameroom house on its own lot for $375k. Meanwhile, a similar house within a few miles of their work (say, Frisco) is probably anywhere from $590k to $2M. Property taxes can be pretty steep here, so that $590k house gets like $14k/yr in property taxes in Frisco while that $375k house in Princeton is only $9k/yr, over $400/mo in additional taxes. They could potentially accept a smaller and thus cheaper house, but to them it's not worth the tradeoff. They need that 3-car garage, they need that gameroom.

My wife has coworkers who live in Forney and commute to jobs in Plano and Frisco. They do that commute 3-5 times a week and see nothing wrong with it. They value having a large home with tons of space, and with the kind of income they make there's little chance they could afford it anywhere near where those jobs are. Think a security guard and a building engineer (like an on-site maintenance tech for a commercial property) are going to own a $1M+ house? No. But they still want a 3 bedroom home with a pool and a spa and an outdoor kitchen, and they can get that for $300k in Forney.

Just trying to share the follow on mindset. If you're having to leave your home by car every day for work, then you're absolutely going to have a car. If you already have the car, why go to the little grocery store at the edge of the neighborhood when you just spend a little more transit time and go to the big store that has everything else you'd want to buy?

Sure, where the compensation is sufficient to cover your travel costs you would reasonably consider it. But then transportation costs aren't an issue, making the unaffordability idea that started this moot. But, if we want to move beyond the topic of cost, that just brings us right back to the point that travel time ends up being the same living in the city and living in the country, so what have you gained by living in the city?

What one normally thinks you would gain is having other amenities, like bars, restaurants, healthcare, shopping, and just an all round vibrant community right there to enjoy when you get home from work. But the particular city homes we are talking about don't even have that. They are just houses upon houses upon houses all jammed up against each other with nothing in-between.

And it is that way because people want it to be that way. They don't want the restaurants, shopping, healthcare, etc. to be anywhere nearby. Even though they cry that they afford to the transportation to get to them, funnily enough. But why? What compels one to be tripping over their neighbour, but at the same time not wanting to engage in a community with them?

Jobs, hopefully paying a good bit more than minimum wage. If not for the city they wouldn't have any kind of income. They don't move to the city because they want some Parisian lifestyle, they move to the city because there are practically no jobs in the actually rural areas.

> They don't want the restaurants, shopping, healthcare, etc. to be anywhere nearby

Correct. They see these things as unsafe for their families to be around. They don't want to live within walking distance of a nightclub.

> Even though they cry that they afford to the transportation to get to them, funnily enough.

Most of the people arguing for better walkability and better transit access are absolutely not the same people actively choosing to live in places like Forney and Princeton and what not. They're generally fine having that commute and are fine driving to the Walmart when they need something that isn't just delivered to their home. Why even bother getting in the car to go to a restaurant, Uber Eats will bring the restaurant to them, and they don't have to deal with the crowds. Which, the few places with actual stores in these areas are massively crowded, because it's just oceans of houses around a few dots of shopping areas with giant parking areas surrounding them.

> What compels one to be tripping over their neighbour, but at the same time not wanting to engage in a community with them?

That they were willing to settle for the hour commute and not a two-hour commute, and that was the biggest single-family home they could afford in that hour commute radius and had a decent school district.

You're looking at it in pretty much the opposite direction from how they're looking at it. You're looking at a community you want to live in and then decide the home you can afford. They're looking for the house they want to live in, and then find the community they can afford to buy in. People didn't choose to live in Princeton or Forney or Melissa or Anna (or dozens of other "cities" around DFW) because of city amenities, outside of maybe a school district. They live there because they could buy a big single house cheap.

When I talk to friends about "if you could just move tomorrow, where would you want to live in DFW", their choices are rarely based in closeness to amenities. It is often about wanting more land, more space, more rooms. A family of four with a four-bedroom house with a dining room and two living rooms, too cramped. Need to move further out and get a bigger house. Definitely down to trade close access to the bike trails, walking distance to a large shopping area, walkable to the transit system to go all over the city, public parks with public swimming pools within walking distance, the elementary school around the corner and the middle school down the street for another few hundred square feet of land.

You haven't gained that, though. Not without travel, and once travel is in the picture then you can be located anywhere. Like was said in other comments, in practice, the time to get to a point in the city is the same if you start in the city, or if you start outside of the city. Cities build up as hubs for the surrounding area and the world at large, so getting things in and out of the city really fast is core to their design.

> no jobs in the actually rural areas.

1. The data clearly shows that rural areas, as a rule, have more available jobs. But you aren't apt to be able to work your way up to becoming a professional football player or CEO of a Fortune 500 in those jobs, so, granted, the jobs aren't appealing to the temporarily embarrassed superstar. I'll give you that.

2. I don't know where you think this walled city is that prevents anyone who doesn't live in the city from entering, but I can assure you that we're not talking about it. There is nothing that excludes you from city jobs if you live in the country, and likewise there is nothing that excludes you from working in the country if you live in the city.

In fact, those Fortune 500 CEOs and professional football players often live in the country!

This is objectively, radically untrue. It takes my wife 10-15 minutes to get to that same office where it takes the people living in Forney an hour to get in. She'll spend 20 minutes of her day commuting, they'll spend two hours. I used to ride my bicycle to the office before I mostly worked from home and have it take me maybe 15 minutes. Coworkers living in a town literally called Farmersville routinely took over an hour and a half each way. One person has to take a 30-mile trip, one person is taking a five-mile trip which is essentially the same final five miles as the 30-mile trip, how could it possibly be the same time.

> once travel is in the picture then you can be located anywhere

They'd agree with this entirely. I already have to have a car to get to work, so why wouldn't I just use that to go to whatever restaurant or shop I want across the city, why limit myself to only where I could walk? Personally, I enjoy going to the restaurants right at the edge of my neighborhood, on the days I go into the office I like strolling through the parks and to the restaurants nearby. But lots of people wouldn't want to "limit" themselves to only a mile or two, when the shop they'd prefer to shop at is a similar time distance away but by car.

> There is nothing that excludes you from city jobs if you live in the country

Time. Time excludes you from those city jobs. You're eventually having to spend more and more time driving through all those seas of neighborhoods to those decent paying jobs, its eventually just not worth it. People aren't going to be willing to drive two hours each way, it's amazing they're even willing to put up with an hour each way.

Once again, go back to that map of DFW. To really get an "affordable" truly rural place on that East side of DFW where you'd actually have dozens of acres without spending millions, you're probably looking at Josephine, Blue Rdige, maybe Westminister as a few examples. Go see what the commute time is starting at like 7:00 AM from there to Addison. Nearly two hours. Maybe you're going to work at a more industrial job in Garland. Nearly two hours. Are you willing to spend four hours of your day every day in your car?

> The data clearly shows that rural areas as a rule have more available jobs.

More available total jobs or more available comparable jobs? Please do share this data. Other than specific industries like oil and gas it's pretty much the opposite from what I can tell.

But yeah, go work a job in Addison, Las Colinas, deep in Plano, etc. You'll find a lot of coworkers living in Farmersville, Prosper, Melissa, etc.

> Their reasoning was home affordability, home value growth, and school quality

This is yet another set of data points showing what I'm talking about, thank you. These people live there because it was cheap when they bought it, they expect the metroplex to keep growing increasing the value of their eventually "closer in" home from where the outskirts will be in a decade, and schools are better than other places they might have afforded to buy. Am I wrong?

In the end transit time to the American Airlines Center to watch a Mavericks or Dallas Stars game didn't matter. It didn't matter it wasn't the restaurant capital of the region.

And I don't blame them, that was the choice they were given with the options presented. Housing in the US is a mess, and it seems few get what they'd really prefer they just have to live with the tradeoffs of what's on the market at the time.

I think you are wrong, yes

Could be I'm the one who is wrong, but I don't think most people buy homes with this sort of speculation in mind. Most people are just looking for the most comfortable and nicest house they can afford on their budget, and probably don't actually think too much about "what might be built later"