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How Equifax Became a Private IRS

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#141

Post by cudgy »

TheDong wrote: post #110
wmf wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this as an education problem. People need to be taught the specific rules of credit scores in addition to general personal finance.

I feel like my parent's point about credit cards and college loans being bad were correct though. Like, I believe they're right that going to college on a full-ride scholarship was better than going to a more expensive one on a loan. I also believe they're right that credit cards are bad. Like, banks make money on credit cards by: 1. hoping you miss a payment, and collecting interest, and 2. charging merchants, thus…

I wish I had parents like yours.

Overall, credit is not advantageous to most people that use it for consumerism. Credit should only be used for investments with a commensurate return above the interest rate.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#142

Post by tarranoth »

refurb wrote: post #139
tarranoth wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the US credit score at all. What's the predictive value of you paying off a mortgage based on you just shopping with a credit card? Sure if you can't pay your normal shopping cart, probably you shouldn't really be getting a mortgage, but the predictive value besides that seems lost on me. Surely a bank could just ask your payslip info and get a more accurate feel whether or not you are creditworthy…

I don’t follow. Shopping with a credit card literally involves managing a line of credit. You don’t see how that relates to creditworthiness? You also believe purely income information is a better indicator of credit worthiness? It tells you almost nothing (which is why income plus all current expenses is used).

A mortgage is about the ability to pay back hundreds of thousands over an extremely long time period. Your normal shopping is a blip, and it makes barely any difference because normal people just use their credit card the same as if it was a debit one (the only difference you pay it off at the end of the month). So it doesn't tell me anything about your ability to handle real credit. What do I care that you pay off a 100-ish bucks a month by buying food? I don't think paying off your shopping cart is very impressive, and someone telling me "I've paid off my shopping carts for over 15 years" (which is what advice US people seem to throw around to use your credit card for) isn't going to impress me, yet this is what a company uses for important stuff? And at least employment status/income tells me something, rather than nothing.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#143

Post by dsfyu404ed »

>The Work Number is so important that Equifax is engaged in the work that should be reserved to a government.

While I'm sure many shallow ideologues are delighted to read it, this take misses the fundamental problem: concentration of power.

Creating a government organization that does the things Equifax does will not change the balance of power even there's some nominal legislature or executive oversight. Worse still would be giving those tasks to an existing agency. The problem here isn't that Equifax isn't government. The problem here is that a singular organization is providing a set of services and the nature of those services and the information processing they do to provide them results in it having too much power and result in those who it affects having too little recourse. Unless you divy up the services Equifax performs across more organizations, public or private, you will not fix the problem (the clearest path to doing this is probably federal anti-trust law IMO).

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#144

Post by hoseja »

fragmede wrote: post #56
jasonjayr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Government answers to it's people. Equifax answers to it's shareholders. IRS already has that info. The people have the power to control and influence how that data is handled, and distributed. We have no power to compel Equifax to do anything.

Government is able to compel Equifax to do things, and is run by we, the people, so it seems like we should be able to something, for sufficiently large and powerful numbers of "we".

Ah but you see, you're not friends with a senator.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#145

Post by college_physics »

oleganza wrote: post #136
debacle wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dick predicted all of this before many of us were even alive. There is likely no escape from an inhuman future.

OTOH, was there really a time when humans were not enslaving each other in any form? I don't mean in a wide marxist term like "wage slave", but more specific kinds of bonding and control. Liberal changes in Europe in end of 18th century / beginning of 19th coincided with imported slavery from Africa and new colonies. That is freer factory worker would gain their productivity and better relative freedom while producin…

I still hold the (maybe naive) belief that the path from the slave empires of previous eras to today was a benign one. The many deficiencies, setbacks etc cannot negate this relative ranking, even if (like Graeber and co might argue) we are conditioning on a particularly negative societal development some millennia ago.

What is really disappointing is that today people have the illusion that somehow we have learned how to keep overbearing power concentration in check whereas it is manifestly not so. The informed and educated "middle class" that should know better (because it is its own existence that is at stake) is missing in action. [My take: A small fraction of it co-opted by the promise of joining the ruling elite, while the majority pushed down into the precariat]

The result is that the same old monsters re-emerge, now in digital clothes.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#146

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Teever wrote: post #76
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equifax collects data that isn't true and libels its victims by disseminating it to other parties. Having that power enshrined within the government would not be a good thing.

That's a pretty disengenous argument. I think you understand that the point of taking this course of action is to prevent/reduce these kinds of abuses from happening. The goal isn't to enshrine abuse of authority in governmental agencies, but to prevent nongovernmental agencies from abusing that authority.

>The goal isn't to enshrine abuse of authority in governmental agencies, but to prevent nongovernmental agencies from abusing that authority.

I would much rather just whack the big players with antitrust law than give their power to some government agency. A worthless mission statement of some bureaucracy is just that, worthless. If said bureaucracy is using the same information Equifax is using to provide the same services the abuse potential is right there and it's probably only a matter of time until it starts getting used to screw whoever the outgroup of the minute is.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#147

Post by minton »

college_physics wrote: post #124

The final act of the dystopic digital transition we are witnessing is when the (until recently ringfenced) information flows of the broader financial system start getting commingled with the other digital activity already being collected and monitored. With the headlong rush to eliminate physical cash soon there will be no opt-out whatsoever. As the world of old oligopolies dies and a worse one emerges, the grotesque…

I think people underestimate the importance of physical cash. It’s annoying, sure, but it affords a type of freedom that won’t be replaced once lost. I wish more people understood this. Sadly, most people seem willing to trade a tiny bit of convenience today for a worse future tomorrow—for example, the tipless, cash-only coffee shop on the HN front page. I guess, like smokers, people don’t believe there’ll be consequences until it’s too late.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#148

Post by cameronh90 »

Just the other day, I tried to sign up for a monthly rolling account with Sky TV so that I could watch The Last Of Us. About 20 minutes after I signed up, they cancelled my account due to a failed non-credit "identity check" with Experian. They won't tell me any information about what the issue is due to "data protection" other than to say there's nothing that I or anyone else can do.

My credit report looks fine but I'm guessing there's some incorrect data floating around somewhere, but I don't even know where to start in figuring out what's wrong since nobody will even discuss it with me.

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#149

Post by phpisthebest »

minton wrote: post #147
college_physics wrote: post #124

The final act of the dystopic digital transition we are witnessing is when the (until recently ringfenced) information flows of the broader financial system start getting commingled with the other digital activity already being collected and monitored. With the headlong rush to eliminate physical cash soon there will be no opt-out whatsoever. As the world of old oligopolies dies and a worse one emerges, the grotesque…

I think people underestimate the importance of physical cash. It’s annoying, sure, but it affords a type of freedom that won’t be replaced once lost. I wish more people understood this. Sadly, most people seem willing to trade a tiny bit of convenience today for a worse future tomorrow—for example, the tipless, cash-only coffee shop on the HN front page. I guess, like smokers, people don’t believe there’ll be consequ…

>>I guess, like smokers, people don’t believe there’ll be consequences until it’s too late.

I wonder with this comment is irony or not? So let me ask, did you support the banning of smoking by government there by denying people the right to body autonomy, deny business the right to control their property, and deny consumers the right to choose for themselves the types of business they transact with? (aka freedom of association) all under the mantra of "the greater good"

Because if you support that infringement upon liberty then it is indeed ironic for you to then use smokers as a prop to talk about further governmental infringement to liberty

Re: How Equifax Became a Private IRS

#150

Post by phpisthebest »

jasonjayr wrote: post #39
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equifax collects data that isn't true and libels its victims by disseminating it to other parties. Having that power enshrined within the government would not be a good thing.

Why? Government answers to it's people. Equifax answers to it's shareholders. IRS already has that info. The people have the power to control and influence how that data is handled, and distributed. We have no power to compel Equifax to do anything.

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