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IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

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Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#231

Post by infamouscow »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #196
infamouscow wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenders should be able to make a determination by looking at the person's history of defaulting. An opaque number doesn't tell you that.

I mean, that's exactly what the opaque number is trying to do - typically you have some thresholds, below X deny the loan request, above Y approve, in the gray area review.. The number will have some complex weighting, but I'm not sure how you get away from assigning a score if you want to make an automated decision.

The way the credit bureaus derived scores is automated, so what's the point of the score?

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#232

Post by marcusverus »

andrekandre wrote: post #221
marcusverus wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we're trying to achieve a goal which is not possible with the tools at hand. There is no way to satisfy the right of all people to self-govern in a nation where half of the population wants a secular society with a European-style welfare system, and the other half wants a laissez-faire system that imposes Christian social mores. The goals of the left and right are not reconcilable. The underlying…

> To ensure that we are truly able to self-govern, we need to pick our governments, not just our representatives. what does that mean in practice? i guess im having a hard time imagining what that would look like in concrete terms...

When you think about the power structure of our governments, power flows top-down; from National -> State -> Local government, which makes sense. But when deciding which local governments participate in which State governments, and which states participate in which national government (if any), these decisions should be managed bottom-up instead of top-down.

Consider the situation in Oregon, where five rural counties have voted to leave the state of Oregon and to join the state of Idaho.[0] According to WaPo:

> "Lawmakers in Oregon and Idaho would have to enact bills to redefine the states’ boundaries and redistrict their legislatures. They’d also have to muster the votes to override a potential veto from their respective governors. And then Congress would have to sign off on the move."

In other words, these counties can only change states if they're able to get 320 million people to sign off on the change. That's crazy.

Now, how to achieve this in practice? Ideally we would revert to the original Federal system (with a small, weak federal government and strong state governments) and allow for counties to move between states, but that seems unlikely.

Alternatively, we could allow for counties to move between states, and allow States to self-organize into new federal/confederal nations, or to move between nations via some established process (i.e. referenda). These nations should coordinate at a supra-national level (like the EU) to facilitate commerce and free movement, and to allow for the settlement if nation-level disputes.

[0]https://archive.is/l3tJG#selection-565.166-565.444

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#233

Post by dragonwriter »

marcusverus wrote: post #232
andrekandre wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To ensure that we are truly able to self-govern, we need to pick our governments, not just our representatives. what does that mean in practice? i guess im having a hard time imagining what that would look like in concrete terms...

When you think about the power structure of our governments, power flows top-down; from National -> State -> Local government, which makes sense. But when deciding which local governments participate in which State governments, and which states participate in which national government (if any), these decisions should be managed bottom-up instead of top-down. Consider the situation in Oregon, where five rural counties…

> In other words, these counties can only change states if they're able to get 320 million people to sign off on the change.

Huh? They need:

(1) a simple majority of each legislative house in Idaho, which is 18+36=54 people

(2) a simple majority of each legislative house in Colorado, which is 18+33=51 people, and

(3) a simple majority of each House of Congress, which is 51+218=269 people

for a total of 269+54+51=374 people. Your 320 million estimate is off by about 6 orders of magnitude.

(Even if you make the rather unrrasonable assumption that they need to convince enough unique voters to guarantee the election of a sufficient majority in each involved legislature—i.e., you assume that every eligible voter treats every Idaho, Colorado, and federal legislative election as a single issue referendum on the issue—you’ll find that the number is a very small fraction of the ~240 million eligible voters in the US.)

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#234

Post by shadilay »

dougmwne wrote: post #159
nanis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Various parts of the U.S. are already there. You know where those are if you live in them. Ask yourself: How many times have stopped yourself from asserting 2 + 2 indeed is four[1] in conversations with colleagues, neighbors, teachers, or even family because you may lose your income or worse if you did not at least remain silent in the face of assertions to the contrary? For those not familiar, here is the beginning…

You're absolutely right, even though I suspect I would strongly disagree with some of the things you would assert as self-evident facts. I might feel that the current majority consensus opinion on many things is good and right, but I can still be disturbed when I see the walls closing in on people who dare to think otherwise. The Overton Window is shutting fast and we may all find our fingers crushed sooner or later.

It is not our fingers that will be crushed but our necks.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#235

Post by shadilay »

b112 wrote: post #145
refenestrator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the news the last two weeks, blanket condemnation of the Afghanistan withdrawal despite 70÷ approval for it and the fact that all of these educated news people have been around watching for the last 20 years. Yet we can't get a microphone, airtime or column inches for anyone in favor of the withdrawal. I'm free to post pseudonymously though!

I wonder if some corps are upset they won't be selling more bullets and gas to the army? First Korea, now this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Zaharoff

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#236

Post by andrekandre »

marcusverus wrote: post #232
andrekandre wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To ensure that we are truly able to self-govern, we need to pick our governments, not just our representatives. what does that mean in practice? i guess im having a hard time imagining what that would look like in concrete terms...

When you think about the power structure of our governments, power flows top-down; from National -> State -> Local government, which makes sense. But when deciding which local governments participate in which State governments, and which states participate in which national government (if any), these decisions should be managed bottom-up instead of top-down. Consider the situation in Oregon, where five rural counties…

thats really interesting, and makes sense to me, but i wonder about how feasible a weak central govt would work in such a globalized capitalism that we have today...

wouldn't such flexibility/decentralization hurt national competitiveness vis-a-vis say, u.s vs china, or russia etc?

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#237

Post by ThelmaWilkens »

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Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#238

Post by jacquesm »

forgingahead wrote: post #189
Sanzig wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have fixed interest rate mortgages in Canada, but the fixed rate is only valid for a specific period (typically 5 years). After this, the mortgage needs to be either renewed for another term at then-current rates, or transferred to a new lender.

Sure, fixed term for a short period is normal everywhere. But a fixed term for the entire length of the mortgage, whereby mortgage terms are commonly 30 years long, are only seen in the US and Denmark. Here's some more detail on this: https://www.netinterest.co/p/financing-the-american-home

You can add the Netherlands and many other European countries to that list.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#239

Post by BizarroLand »

aabaker99 wrote: post #215
crummybowley wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the bank has at risk the capital loaned, which they payed out. A risk is not a "loss" in a hypothetical amount of money that maybe could be had in the future given market conditions which are not predictable.

> A risk is not a "loss" in a hypothetical amount of money that maybe could be had in the future given market conditions which are not predictable. This is incorrect. It is very common for investors (yes, including commercial banks) to frame risk in the way I described. This link to investopedia will expound upon my admittedly short description of interest rate risk [1]. Another obvious risk in this context is prepay…

Is it just me or is a prepayment risk effectively moot for large loan investment companies like banks?

After all, even though their calculations were counting on the profits of that money, having it back now means they can loan it out again, and possibly will receive a lager return if interest rates have risen.

For instance, my mortgage is at 2.49%. Right now interest rates are at 3.04%, so if I paid my mortgage off today the bank should be able to find a borrower who would pay over 20% more for the same money, right?

I get that this could go in the opposite direction, though, so I know it's not a perfect answer.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#240

Post by regularfry »

nanis wrote: post #229
regularfry wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stuff like this[1] ought to have some impact on the "real world" results, right? The real world results, as measured, showed a 0.3% false positive rate. If your [1] has a measurable effect, it's included in that 0.3%. > > false positives have a linear cost. > That's a strong assumption. Assuming constant testing happens in an environment of quarantining of the person who tested positive and their contacts and possi…

> The real world results, as measured, showed a 0.3% false positive rate. Try as I did, I can't find a source for this claim. The best I could find was[1] which seems to indicate a 1.1% false positive rate for people without symptoms (keep in mind my argument is against widespread, unconditional testing). PCR results in the real world seem to vary a lot, but a 3% false positive rate seems appropriate. > 17 people qua…

First page of google searching for "lft false positive rate" gives me https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-11-11-oxford-university-and-p... :

    The specificity of the test was recorded as 99.68% - the 
    overall false positive rate was 0.32%, although this was 
    lowered to 0.06% in a lab setting.
> PCR results in the real world seem to vary a lot, but a 3% false positive rate seems appropriate.

Not to me. Again, first page of google: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... puts an _upper_ bound on the PCR false positive rate of 0.08%, and that would require all the positives in that survey to have been false. And that's a real-world result across 208,730 samples.

But given the existence of LFTs and how cheap and immediate they are, I don't think anyone's talking about population-wide PCR testing anyway.

> You are assuming total costs of a trace/quarantine regime are linear in the number of people prevented from participating in society and productive activities.

For the proportion of the population removed at any given time? As close to linear as makes no difference, yes. Is your argument that there's a quadratic factor in network effects? You haven't explained what your cost model actually is. For your argument to work you need those costs to follow an exponential curve, and there's just no mechanism for that to happen.

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