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Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

reuters.com

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Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#71

Post by latchkey »

sodality2 wrote: post #32
BadHumans wrote: post #6

I've always heard Discover was a good company to work for and they had the best customer support. Capital One is the opposite of both of those things so I hope the government steps in here.

To add more anecdata: C1 has all of my accounts from savings, checking, and two CC's. I've never had a problem. Their customer support has always helped. That being said, all my eggs in one basket is terrible (though instant transfers + 4.35% savings is great - I keep about $30 in my checking and transfer over whenever a charge will go through, and thus maximize my interest gained!)

Vio bank is a money market for 5.3%.

https://www.viobank.com/cornerstone-money-market-savings

I remember when people used to be excited about 1% gains...

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#72

Post by RHSeeger »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47
RHSeeger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even adults need protection, depending on circumstances I think the argument is that it's not protection. If someone won't lend to you at 25% (but they would at 27%), then you can't borrow. Is it protection to just prevent those people from borrowing at all?

Yes. Usury law serves this purpose, to draw a line. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/usury At least in the case of auto loans, usury limits do not limit subprime credit access. If you want to refer specifically to deep subprime unsecured model profitability, if it’s profitable, clearly there is room for margin compression through interest rate limits. https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/cfr/consumer/2015/presentation...

> Yes. Usury law serves this purpose, to draw a line.

I do not understand what you're trying to say here. We're talking about

- putting an upper limit on the interest rate for loans (which is what said usary limits _are_), and

- if that means some people cannot get loans, and

- if that inability to get a loan is really helping that person

The fact that usary law exists and puts a limit on the interest rate for loans doesn't answer the question, since it's only the starting point from which the question is asked.

That being said, what you linked seems to say something along the lines of

1. For dealer + bank loan setups, the usary limits do indeed reduce the ability of the dealer setup a loan (with the bank) for a buyer. This is the case we were originally talking about, for which we have an unanswered question.

2. For BHPH (the car dealer is the one doing the loan), the limit is worked around by increasing the amount of the loan. This _seems_ to be similar to buying points on a loan. This seems like a better tradeoff than "a loan isn't possible", since the buyer still has an option (where they wind up paying more by the end, but with less risk; to both parties). My thought would be that this is actually helpful for the buyer, but it's debateable.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#73

Post by monksy »

silisili wrote: post #62
BadHumans wrote: post #6

I've always heard Discover was a good company to work for and they had the best customer support. Capital One is the opposite of both of those things so I hope the government steps in here.

C1 has a huge base in NoVa, and everyone I've known to work there seem to enjoy it. As a customer though you're right, Discover is leaps and bounds better than Capital One. Walmart of all people is suing them for their terrible customer service, and that speaks volumes. I will cancel my Discover cards if this goes through.

I've heard stories of the Chicago office that just make it a massive redflag.

quota to pip 15% of the workforce, stack ranking, Amazon managers, downleveling by default, etc

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#74

Post by b112 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #72
toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Usury law serves this purpose, to draw a line. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/usury At least in the case of auto loans, usury limits do not limit subprime credit access. If you want to refer specifically to deep subprime unsecured model profitability, if it’s profitable, clearly there is room for margin compression through interest rate limits. https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/cfr/consumer/2015/presentation...

> Yes. Usury law serves this purpose, to draw a line. I do not understand what you're trying to say here. We're talking about - putting an upper limit on the interest rate for loans (which is what said usary limits _are_), and - if that means some people cannot get loans, and - if that inability to get a loan is really helping that person The fact that usary law exists and puts a limit on the interest rate for loans…

The logic is, our ancestors and our current laws are there for a reason. And to push aside ursary laws, and their logic without reading in depth the logic as to why, is throwing away valuable, empirically derived, real world research.

And sometime the corporate body needs externally deroved guardrails.

That said, secured credit cards exist. No one need be given credit, to have a credit card. And secured can lead to unsecured in time.

Companies have this as a patch already. And they want to lend, so market forces work here.

And there already is a limit under ursary laws, and yet magically, we still have sub prime credit. So to both sides of this discussion I say, ursary doesn't solve having subprime, because there is always a subprime.

Remove existing subprime clients, and the next tier becomes the new subprime. It's merely a label for the "riskiest people we lend to".

Chase that label, and eventually no one will be lent to. At all.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#75

Post by kmeisthax »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #68

I hope the government regulations don’t just end at stopping the merger, but also disallowing these financial institutes from banning users for speech they deem harmful. Actual illegal use, sure, but im not sure how or why it’s legal for them to ban and remove banking abilities from someone for their political views no matter how “abhorrent”.

It's legal because the 1st Amendment is narrowly drafted to the point of uselessness. Censorship is only the result of actions by the sovereign - i.e. the local legitimate violence monopoly. Any other kind of monopoly? Sorry, that's actually just their freedom of association. And, ironically, their own freedom of speech: Comcast argued in front of courts that any sort of common carrier regulation on Internet traffic would be censoring Comcast.

As for "abhorrent views", I'm of two minds. Many of those "abhorrent views" are themselves calls to commit censorship. I don't think political speech calling for censorship should be protected by the 1st Amendment, because of the chilling effects that speech causes, even if the law itself would be immediately invalidated by SCOTUS. On the other hand, having private actors make the final call on what speech is permissible is also wrong, because we have no judicial recourse should they make a mistake. But there's also a lot of very impermissible conduct - i.e. doxing, spam, etc - that should be illegal, isn't illegal, but is only held at bay because of intermediaries having unlimited censorship power over their own platforms. From the perspective of a court, bringing these platforms into the scope of the 1st Amendment would be a net negative.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#76

Post by BasilPH »

As a foreigner without a credit score, Discover was the easiest credit card to get started with. They made things easy and predictable and I love that you get cash back and not some points that you need to convert back to dollars.

I hope they keep that spirit of being straightforward.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#78

Post by TheCaptain4815 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #75
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #68

I hope the government regulations don’t just end at stopping the merger, but also disallowing these financial institutes from banning users for speech they deem harmful. Actual illegal use, sure, but im not sure how or why it’s legal for them to ban and remove banking abilities from someone for their political views no matter how “abhorrent”.

It's legal because the 1st Amendment is narrowly drafted to the point of uselessness. Censorship is only the result of actions by the sovereign - i.e. the local legitimate violence monopoly. Any other kind of monopoly? Sorry, that's actually just their freedom of association. And, ironically, their own freedom of speech: Comcast argued in front of courts that any sort of common carrier regulation on Internet traffic…

Well because these banks can only function from the money they borrow from the government, it’s insane they’re allowed to censor 1st amendment protected speech.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#79

Post by Kbelicius »

pasttense01 wrote: post #31
lvl102 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it’s worse because it’s not as natural of a monopoly as it was for the payment network space. Google and Meta actively created a duopoly in the ad space and at a global scale too.

No. For many of us it irrelevant if there is duopoly in the ad space because we don't use Facebook and we use ad-blockers. But in the payment space VISA/MC charge high fees which are passed onto all consumers.

> For many of us it irrelevant if there is duopoly in the ad space because we don't use Facebook and we use ad-blockers. But in the payment space VISA/MC charge high fees which are passed onto all consumers.

Products that you buy have their marketing priced in. Even if you don't see the adds you are still paying for them.

Re: Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35B stock deal

#80

Post by piperswe »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #26
csnover wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, consumer interchange fees in the US are significantly higher than they are in Europe. The interchange fees for Visa and MC consumer products within the EEU are 0.2–0.3%[0][1], whereas in the US they are from 1–3%[2][3]. [0] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD... [1] https://www.mastercard.co.uk/content/dam/public/mastercardco... [2] https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/…

I asked ChatGPT about this. It said for interchange portion, sure. I'm not sure if EU payment processors finds a way to make it up in different portions of the fees so that it evens out to the same 1-3%?

What's with all these "I asked ChatGPT" comments? I've seen quite a few, and I don't think any of them have added anything to a conversation.
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