confidence of sufficient funds when that auto payment hits How is this different than paying with cash or debit?
Because cash and debit allow you to pick the time in the month when you happen to have the ability to pay for something. Frankly these questions astound me, do y'all really know no low income folks?
With cash: you must have the money when you make the purchase.
With card: you can set the cash aside at the time of purchase to pay when the card bill is due.
How does the card give you less flexibility or make it harder to pay for?
I always wondered why people in America would ever pay by cash or credit card - unless they are laundering that cash. Otherwise, you're giving up 1-3% discount. Set auto-pay on your credit card to pay in full every month. I've never once paid for credit card interest. I think there's a term inside credit card companies for people like me: leeches or something like that.
Important context: this is US thing. EU capped interchange fees at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit cards. So in US card processing is x5-x10 more expensive.
Things that are more expensive in the US for no reason: Healthcare Internet access College sighs and adds "The very act of making a purchase" At least we have cheap gas? farts
This is why people are moving out of the US in droves, the universities are empty and nobody goes to the doctor.
Things that are more expensive in the US for no reason: Healthcare Internet access College sighs and adds "The very act of making a purchase" At least we have cheap gas? farts
Internet access isn't particularly expensive in the US. Healthcare, education, and housing are expensive in the US for the same primary reason: political interventions that simultaneously subsidize demand and restrict supply.
// subsidize demand and restrict supply
I have never seen anyone articulate this so crisply.
The government has created a situation with the student loans thing where basically anyone can borrow 500k to get an obviously useless degree.
Are the colleges going to ensure they collect that money? Obviously yes.
Things that are more expensive in the US for no reason: Healthcare Internet access College sighs and adds "The very act of making a purchase" At least we have cheap gas? farts
Healthcare and college are "Baumol cost disease": because they depend on skilled workers, much of that is the same as "American salaries are higher than in the rest of the world", and unlike manufacturing or software (+) you can't outsource it to lower-wage countries. (+) there still seems to be a massive wage premium for "being physically in a San Francisco office" even if most of the work is being done by an AI, wh…
because code is only a small part of software development. don't forget ping pong tables. lol. I'm both making a valid point and making fun of it too.
I pay $40/mo for 500mbps in my Bushwick apartment - is that considered expensive?
By US standards? No, probably not. But, a quick search indicates you can get similar broadband in Glasgow, Scotland for ~15 GBP/month. And Rome, Italy looks like ~25EUR/month.
Just did my internet contract for my apartment in rural Italy (a town of around 2k people in the Verona province). 1Gb symmetric is indeed 25EUR/month. I added a few stuff on top like static IPv4 and reached 32EUR/month.
This ignores the aspect of consumer data. Credit issuers generate profit through issuing rewards programs in part due to the sale of their customer’s behavioral spending data. Cash and debit users largely retain their data privacy here. It’s hard to put a real world number on what the cost to the consumer is for losing this data ownership, but it is not zero: these data are increasingly used for targeted pricing prac…
Is't the fact that data is valuable for somebody, does not mean that it has a cost (price) for me? Spending data is definitely valuable for seller / corporation to know what to produce. I, on the other hand, cannot get money by saving information. It's not zero sum game, that either I have it or seller have value out of it. Just like with garbage - for me old broken furniture might be a garbage, while for other it's…
That data is used in some alarmingly manipulative ways that directly affect your life.
I always wondered why people in America would ever pay by cash or credit card - unless they are laundering that cash. Otherwise, you're giving up 1-3% discount. Set auto-pay on your credit card to pay in full every month. I've never once paid for credit card interest. I think there's a term inside credit card companies for people like me: leeches or something like that.
> Otherwise, you're giving up 1-3% discount. I would be curious what percentage of people actually qualifies for a card with over 2% cashback especially without a monthly fee. My guess is that that percentage is very low. High earner/spender, sure but that's not most people
It's not hard at all. Citi Custom Cash has 5% on the highest category spend each month for the first $500 (I use it on groceries). American Express Blue Cash Everyday has 3% on groceries/gas/online purchases for up to $6000 purchases each year. Chase Freedom Flex and Discover It have rotating categories every quarter, sometimes groceries, gas, Amazon, PayPal, etc. None of these required much income to be approved.
This ignores the aspect of consumer data. Credit issuers generate profit through issuing rewards programs in part due to the sale of their customer’s behavioral spending data. Cash and debit users largely retain their data privacy here. It’s hard to put a real world number on what the cost to the consumer is for losing this data ownership, but it is not zero: these data are increasingly used for targeted pricing prac…
Why wouldn't a bank sell debit data just the same as credit data? For that matter, I would expect them to be selling everything they can: credit, debit, written checks, ACH transfers, etc.
What incentive is there for them to not do that? Laws? I'm asking sincerely, not rhetorically.
I'm 46. I've never had a credit card. I have a bank account and a debit card. If I can't afford something, I don't buy it. You can just opt out of using credit cards.
Whole Europe does this. I never understood why whole nation wants to live in debt just to have one extra month of cash flow (which they’ll probably squander soon).
Using a credit card isn't only about living on debt. Some people pay them off every month, and use them for the fraud protection and rewards.