Quote:
Originally Posted by DrModern
Well, we certainly can focus on the worst loans first, but society-wide, the difference between earning a modest profit on auto lending and making obvious-scam loans ("get your title back with TitleMax!") is only one of degree.
Student loans and TitleMax differ in degree only if you accept the premise that all lending (or maybe consumer lending?) for profit is a morally questionable, and probably long term net negative, transfer of wealth from the haves to the have nots. That's hardly self evident.
maybe I'm naive, but it certainly feels like student loans and the ability to take out a mortgage have contributed positively to my ability to build savings, at least if the but for world had been exactly the same except I would have had no access to consumer credit.
Whether student loans have as positive an impact as, say, free college would have is a different and closer question, and probably depends on who would bear the incremental tax burden of providing for free college.
Also, people with incomes of $1+million take out mortgage loans all the time. It seems facially ridiculous to call those loans predatory.
Honestly, this whole view of consumer credit feels very Old Testament, which makes me think that I must be missing your point.
FWIW, I don't work in lending, or even finance. I have no personal skin in this debate.