This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Another Tale From The Oligarch Recovery: Why The Poor Pay $4,150 For A $1,500 Sofa
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Five years into a national economic recovery that has further strained the poor working class, an entire industry has grown around handing them a lifeline to the material rewards of middle-class life. Retailers in the post-Great Recession years have become even more likely to work with customers who don’t have the money upfront, instead offering a widening spectrum of payment plans that ultimately cost far more and add to the burdens of life on the economy’s fringes
In some ways, the business harkens back to the subprime boom of the early 2000s, when lenders handed out loans to low-income borrowers with little credit history. But while people in those days were charged perhaps an interest rate of 5 to 10 percent, at rental centers the poor find themselves paying effective annual interest rates of more than 100 percent. With business models such as “rent-to-own,” in which transactions are categorized as leases, stores like Buddy’s can avoid state usury laws and other regulations…
By the next day, the Abbotts had a remade living room, two companion pieces, both of the same blended material, 17 percent leather. The love seat and sofa retailed, together, for about $1,500. Abbott would pay for hers over two years, though she still had paying the option to pay monthly or weekly. The total price if paid weekly: $4,158.
“I’ve never seen a customer base or an economy like this,” Gazzo said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Tampa.
– From the Washington Post article: Rental America: Why the Poor Pay $4,150 for a $1,500 Sofa
When you bail out financial criminals and predators, you get a criminal and predatory economy. If there’s one clear lesson from the 2008 crisis and its aftermath, that should be it.
Earlier this week, I published an article titled, Land of the Debt Serf – How “Auto Title Loan” Companies are Ruthlessly Preying on America’s Growing Underclass. In it, we saw how efficiently the Fed’s 0% interest rate policy trickles down to the poor. In fact, preying on the poor for profits has been one America’s most vibrant business models since the “recovery” took hold. We learned that:
Short-term lenders, seeking a detour around newly toughened restrictions on payday and other small loans, are pushing Americans to borrow more money than they often need by using their debt-free autos as collateral.
Their hefty principal and high interest rates are creating another avenue that traps unwary consumers in a cycle of debt. For about 1 out of 9 borrowers, the loan ends with their vehicles being repossessed…
But Jordan said it wouldn’t make a loan that small. Instead, it would lend her $2,600 at what she later would learn was the equivalent of 153% annual interest — as long as she put up her 2005 Buick Rendezvous sport utility vehicle as collateral.
State law limits payday loans to $300, minus a maximum fee of $45. California also caps interest rates on consumer loans of less than $2,500 on a sliding scale that averages about 30%. Consumer loans above $2,500 have no interest rate limit.
For that reason, essentially all auto title loans in the state are above that level, according to the state’s business oversight department.
That article was a follow up to the piece published the week before, titled: Use of Alternative Financial Services, Such as Payday Loans, Continues to Increase Despite the “Recovery.”
In today’s piece, we examine a the booming business of rent-to-own. This is where people too broke to buy things such as furniture and electronics, agree to buy these items via weekly payments. Of course, they typically never end up owning anything, as 75% of the time the items are repossessed or returned within weeks of the transaction. Those who do end up owning the items, pay multiples of the retail price.
Now, from the Washington Post:
CULLMAN, Ala. — The love seat and sofa that Jamie Abbott can’t quite afford ended up in her double-wide trailer because of the day earlier this year when she and her family walked into a new store called Buddy’s. Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash, but here was a place that catered to exactly those kinds of customers. Anything could be hers. The possibilities — and the prices — were dizzying.
Five years into a national economic recovery that has further strained the poor working class, an entire industry has grown around handing them a lifeline to the material rewards of middle-class life. Retailers in the post-Great Recession years have become even more likely to work with customers who don’t have the money upfront, instead offering a widening spectrum of payment plans that ultimately cost far more and add to the burdens of life on the economy’s fringes.
What national economic recovery? It is an oligarch recovery. Nothing more, nothing less.
The poor today can shop online, paying in installments, or walk into traditional retailers such as Kmart that now offer in-store leasing. The most striking change in the world of low-income commerce has been the proliferation of rent-to-own stores such as Buddy’s Home Furnishings, which has been opening a new store every week, largely in the South.
In some ways, the business harkens back to the subprime boom of the early 2000s, when lenders handed out loans to low-income borrowers with little credit history. But while people in those days were charged perhaps an interest rate of 5 to 10 percent, at rental centers the poor find themselves paying effective annual interest rates of more than 100 percent. With business models such as “rent-to-own,” in which transactions are categorized as leases, stores like Buddy’s can avoid state usury laws and other regulations.
And yet low-income Americans increasingly have few other places to turn. “Congratulations, You are Pre-Approved,” Buddy’s says on its Web site, and the message plays to America’s bottom 40 percent. This is a group that makes less money than it did 20 years ago, a group increasingly likely to string together paychecks by holding multiple part-time jobs with variable hours.
“Basically, the market pulled back from all low-income borrowers instead of trying to figure out how to serve them,” said Michael Barr, a University of Michigan law professor and author of “No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans.”
Let’s see. How do I make this abundantly clear.
Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are nothing but criminal butlers for the oligarchy. The proof is undeniable at this point. While this unaccountable banking cartel promised us that 0% rates would help the economy, America’s growing underclasses are paying 100% rates for loans to buy sofas and pay for food, more than five years into this so-called “recovery. Meanwhile, the only segment of society with access to low interest rates are the very wealthy financial oligarchs who leverage this cheap money to speculate on financial assets and real estate. So yes, the Fed (Central Banking in general) is completely to blame for the world’s growing inequality, as are their submissive, compliant defenders in academia, “journalism” and within the halls of power in Washington D.C.
Inside Buddy’s, Abbott walked over to a brown Ashley Furniture model, something she and her husband agreed would fit the colors of their Buccaneer trailer. The love seat had a cup-holder console in the middle and the cushions were plush, and when they took turns testing the feel, they realized it could pivot like a rocking chair.
By the next day, the Abbotts had a remade living room, two companion pieces, both of the same blended material, 17 percent leather. The love seat and sofa retailed, together, for about $1,500. Abbott would pay for hers over two years, though she still had paying the option to pay monthly or weekly. The total price if paid weekly: $4,158.
Most falter. At the Buddy’s in Cullman, some 75 percent of items are returned or repossessed within weeks of the transaction, store manager Angela Shutt says. And nationally, the percentage of returns has been gradually ticking upward — a sign of growing struggles for lower-income workers, said Joe Gazzo, the president of Buddy’s.
“I’ve never seen a customer base or an economy like this,” Gazzo said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Tampa. “You may have five people open an account in a day, but five people return in a day. You almost become like a Blockbuster.”
The Cullman store is one of Buddy’s best performers, and the five employees there empathize with their customers. Derek Bland, who drives around the county repossessing items from derelict renters, just left a job at Papa John’s. Brandy Day, one of the saleswomen, winces when talking about the jewelry that Buddy’s keeps near the register. “Take away a 42-inch TV from somebody, that’s one thing,” Day says. “But a wedding ring?”
In 2008, Buddy’s had 80 stores. Now it has 204. By 2017 it wants to have 500. Gazzo said that company revenue is rising at double-digit levels annually, even as it contends with a new wave of rent-to-own Web sites.
Totally normal that businesses which specialize on increased destitution would be booming half a decade into an economic recovery.
“The industry as a whole is in the biggest fight we’ve had, because we have to compete with everybody,” Gazzo said. “And the customer doesn’t have as much money as they used to.”
I don’t call it the “oligarch recovery” for nothing.
“We’ve always talked about the benefits and costs,” she said on the drive home. “Because with a family you can’t just say, ‘I want this, I’m going to get it.’ But growing up having the chair, the recliner, the love seat, the couch and everything, you just get used to the normal stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to break from the normal stuff and get to reality.”
As mentioned in an interview from last year, Serfdom is the New Normal. Don’t forget to send out your thank you notes:
»
- 54943 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Fuck you Bernank!
Has there ever been a more punchable face?
Yes Geithners.
The banksters have indeed screwed us all, BUT...
I'm getting sick of these stories about "poor" families who can't afford NEW furniture, so they have to finance it.
No they don't.
Here's a thought:
DON'T BUY CRAP YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY CASH FOR!!!
If you can't afford the $1,500 NEW sofa, then buy a $200 USED sofa, or better yet: survive without a sofa for a few months while you SAVE the money to buy the NEW one!
We live in a generation of INSTANT GRATIFICATION.
Past generations would look at us with pity and disgust...
Abstineo Emptor...
[Let the buyer refrain]
the poor are stupid and it's a perminant condition.
That's why most of them are poor; I see it every day.
I remember taking a productivity-management course 30 years ago. The speaker cited a study which found that if you could gather every single American under one roof, take all their assets and redistribute them equally among the entire population; within 20 years, most of the wealth would once again be in the hands of a small percentage of the population.
Giving money to an irresponsible person doesn't magically make them responsible.
Lottery winners, anyone?
You're right: you can't fix stupid...
As the Duke once observed, "Life's hard. It's harder if you're stupid."
My Dad used to tell me there are two types of people in this world...
"Those that owe, and those that own - strive to be the latter."
Gilligan's Island Polonius' Advice to Laertes sung to the Toreador Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg
Your dad reads a lot of IHOP menus
Athletes and rap singers come to mind.
"Thank you for blessing me with a mind to rhyme"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=125&v=otCpCn0l4Wo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJe6-afGz0Q
one of my favorite sayings....."I've been broke, but never been poor. Broke is temporary, poor is a state of mind".
So true. Several times I've been broke, but then I just....
Pick myself up
Dust myself off
And start all over again!
Don't conflate ignorance with intelligence. It would be more accurate to state that many, perhaps most, Americans are delusional. The delusion is partly attributable to a false image of normalcy - that it is normal, even desirable to be in debt. "You can have it all," screams the TV. And they buy it.
This should concern us all. Let us recall that the "liar loans" at the base of the fraud pyramid in 2006 were mostly issued to the working poor. It was their inability to make payments or refinance during a modest housing slump that caused the sub-prime bubble to burst. Hence, financial ignorance among the working poor is a systemic risk to the U.S. and global economies and is something we should fix - rather than laugh at.
Financial ignorance is a result of Keynesianism pervading economics, government and eduction. The people who take out payday loans dance to Krugman's tune at least until its time to pay the piper. Not to say that those folks have even heard of Krugman but it's a zeitgeist kind of thing. Back in the day they had Horatio Alger and things were different.
Ignorance and stupidity are indistinguishable unless you're aware of your ignorance. Most people aren't.
Concrete example:
Poster a few articles back "corrects" my spelling of a proper noun. I point out his mistake. No follow up to the effect of "I stand corrected." Guess he "knew" he was right and just moved on.
So, presuming to know something without actually checking.
Is that ignorance, or just stupidity?
<edit>
Some facts are harder to check than others, but when you have the internet at your fingertips, it's just plain stupid to not check facts, especially with something as basic as spelling.
But which facts? There is so much disinformation out there that deliberately muddies the waters it's almost impossible to break out of confirmation bias for most people.
True, but basic facts, such as how a word is spelled?
Here's another example:
From the Kraftwerk song, "Radioactivity"
"discovered by Madame Curie"
How many Kraftwerk fans think Curie discovered radiactivity and that Kraftwerk weren't just looking for a word that rhymed?
"Radioactivity"
"discovered by Henri Becquerel"
Doesn't work, does it?
and so it goes....
Your are mixing up stupidity with carelessness or indifference.
The poster may be indeed be highly intelligent, very busy, and totally indifferent to what you think.
'.....very busy, and totally indifferent to what you think."
That sounds like a formula for NOT posting
try again
Exactly. I'll bet people that stupid get a disability check from Uncle Obama. People used to buy bean bag chairs. Now, they can buy these;
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR3...
This was the biggest lesson my parents taught me - don't buy it on lease. Save up and buy it. All they had to do is wait 9 months, pay for the sofas with cash, and then have over $2000 left over for other stuff, like an emergency fund.
True story: grandparents went to visit his mother's for dinner. My grandmother and great-grandmother did not get along, but that night, great-grandma insisted they stay the night. They went back home the next morning and found the house, and all the things within (got on lease), gone. WW2 bomb had taken the house, and neighbours were going through the remains looking for their bodies. They paid their loans off, despite their things being destroyed.
No one in the family has ever got things on lease ever again. But we were European, and North Americans didn't go through those sorts of times, not within living memory.
When they call in the Luftwaffe to do a repo -- that's harsh.
For most it's too beneath them, but youtube has a plethora of videos of turning pallates into furniture (I looked for shed information) and there is some really neat stuff.
+1 for the avatar.
Hmmm... A snakebite sounds really good right now.
On second thought; make that a 'black & tan.' I have work to do...
For most it's too beneath them, but youtube has a plethora of videos of turning pallates into furniture
I often enjoy having furniture that's beneath me, notably chairs, sofas and beds.
It really is a vicious cycle, an intentional vicious cycle.
The elites dumb down education, remove any focus on thinking skills, while Zion's grifting banksters steal the people's economic futures. Those closest to the bottom are then herded into welfare and ghetto warehouses, while eduction is further dumbed down. Now the trap is set, those enterprising enough take up the only thing they can, selling drugs, which puts them more often than not in the prison-industrial-complex (PIC). Those not being used as slaves in the PIC, may also reach for a taste of a better life, if just a bit, by taking a bite of the banksters' poisoned apple, high cost fiat-debt.
Regardless, one should never forget that the banksters, on behalf of their Zionist owners, "printed" the counterfeit lucre they have loaned to the poor, dumbed down, and unsuspecting--the banksters utilize them as a fence of their depositors' wealth.
They steal their humanity. Then they steal their wealth and futures. Then they come for their souls. And one day soon, they will come for their bodies.
And since the bottom is getting bigger, each year this system of grift and death applies to more and more.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
The other problem is that we used to teach personal responsibility and now we don't. That is one of the big problems with 'Nanny statehood'. During the last depression there was a saying 'use it up, wear it out, make do, do without' (-learned that from my Grandmother - born 1911). How often do you hear that type of saying now? Answer: never.
Personal responsibility is only applicable when both parties are honest in a transaction, and no transaction can be honest when the currency system itself is a sham. Re-loan money gained from a discount zero or neg interest? People lack moral fiber by borrowing for consumption, the lenders lack and moral fiber for such insane markups, but the real decay is the fed as the true enablers. Free money that can be loaned out for a near infinite return? Few mortals could resist perpetuating and even protecting that kind of system, and the money printers know this.
The only ones hurt in such a system ARE those that have personal responsibility and pay their debts. Talk about perverse incentives.
"Personal responsibility is only applicable when both parties are honest in a transaction,"
You read my mind.
If the banksters, and the zero-sum system of grift they spawn aren't held responsible, then why should anyone else?!
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"remove any focus on thinking skills"
I question whether you can teach someone to think that doesn't already have the inclination.
case in point:
My grade 10 history class was given the choice of Medieval England or Ancient Egypt by a teacher who really hadn't thought it through. The class voted en masse for Medieval because they'd studied it in grade 9, and could fake their way through with last year's notes. A mere handful of us voted for Egypt because we wanted something new we hadn't learned already.
I reckon that class was typical of humanity as a whole.
Greenspam, he primed and legitimized the pump
Has there ever been a more punchable face?
Hank Paulson, but he's a giant so you'd need to use a long thick stick.
Hero? Or zero?
Corpses all hang headless and limp
criminal butlers for the oligarchy = Banker's Whores
The Hero? More like The Zero. Up your ass Berfucktard
Must be about time for an IPO
These people are poor for a reason (being stupid). It's not someone else's fault.
Maybe if we taught about money and finance in schools instead of some of the other crap being taught, things like this would be less common.
Money and finance isn't being taught in schools for a reason.
I know I had to figure it out on my own.
Teaching people what to do and them actually doing it are two very different things. Education doesn't make stupid people more intelligent.
True, but watch this and it may open your eyes a little.
George Carlin on American Owners and Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE
Went back to school a few years ago to finish off my degree. College level econ course, and props to the professor, actually did a really awesome job explaining where money comes from. I've never seen an entire room of adults so thunderstruck. These were all relatively smart middle class people in their late 20s and 30s. Some of them sincerely believed that money was still backed by gold.
Disinformation has actualy done more damage than just ignorance ever could.
Poor people can't do math.
"Maffs"...learn to speak "poor".
'Da hell you say!
L.A. Math test
City of Los Angeles
High School Math Proficiency Exam
Name:____________________
Gang:________________________
1. Duane has an AK47 with a 30 round clip. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and shoots 13 times at each drive by shooting, how many drive by shootings can he attempt before he has to reload?
2. If Jose has two ounces of cocaine and he sells an 8 ball to Jackson for $320 and 2 grams to Billy for $85 per gram, what is the street value of the balance of the cocaine if he doesn't cut it?
3. Rufus is pimping for three girls. If the price is $65 for each trick, how many tricks will each girl have to turn so Rufus can pay for his $800 per day crack habit?
4. Jarome wants to cut his 1/2 pound of Heroin to make 20% more profit. How many ounces of cut will he need?
5. Willie gets $200 for stealing a BMW, $50 for a Chevy and $100 for a 4x4. If he has stolen 2 BMW's and 3 4x4's, how many Chevy's will he have to steal to make $800?
6. Raoul is in prison for 6 years for murder. He got $10,000 for the hit. If his common law wife is spending $100 per month, how much money will he have left when he gets out of prison and how many years will he get for killing her since she spent his money?
7. If the average spray paint can covers 22 square feet and the average letter is 3 square feet, how many letters can a tagger spray with 3 cans of paint?
8. Hector knocked up six girls in his gang. There are 27 girls in the gang. What percentage of the girls in the gang has Hector knocked up?
They maybe poor for a reason, but when the business model preying on them collapses, I don't want to hear the bitching about how the company that tried to get blood from a stone went under.
...walk into traditional retailers such as Kmart that now offer in-store leasing.
Kmart is wising up.
If you cant afford it, then dont buy it!!!
I just got a nice new mattress set. I was going to pay cash, but financed it for a year interest free. Where are these fools shopping!?
"Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash..."
Then why is she shopping for a new 17% leather sofa and loveseat? For fuck's sake! I'm sorry, but I can't feel sorry for an idiot stuck at the bottom of a hole if they're holding the shovel.
that is your excuse why the taxpayers bailed out billionaires?
that is your excuse why the taxpayers bailed out billionaires?
You mean TaxSlaves, because I had no say in the matter.
The Zio, how one man ushered in the two tiered economy
My sister (who is an idiot) paid about $3000 for a computer that was worth about $800 and by the time it was paid off it had already been rendered obsolete by Moore's Law.
Rent A Center I think.
Those still around?
Their biz is booming here. I see trucks daily.
The other side of the problem is, the $1500 sofa was made in China and has a production cost of $100. Including shipping.
Forward!
Why not just get some plastic patio furniture from National wholesale liquidators until you can save up to buy something better?
Or steel patio furniture. It lasts longer and is recycleable. I know this because that's exactly what I did years ago and I still have some inside the house!
I had a rich in-law who owned a paving company in a military town, ka-ching! He used a picnic table in his dining room. The 'poor' relatives thought it was ridiculous.
That is awesome. I need to give it a go...
Or even just pile some bricks up and sit on them, it would be a lot more comfortable too. You could even put some nails in the bricks for decoration, and some barbed wire to hold it all together. Sorted.
Made me laugh, our first dining room set was a wrought iron table and chairs my parents gave us. Picked up our dining room set at an auction house for cash.
They'll give you all of the rope you need to hang yourself...
they'll probably rent you the rope.
If yo' fatass breaks the rope, they'll even keep the deposit!
Hint Hint.
https://stcloud.craigslist.org/search/zip
You know things are peaking when the teevee commercials advertize things like teevees being available for purchase on a weekly payment program. "Only $15/week!", etc. I have a feeling I will be saying the same thing regarding "Only $3/day!" commercials after three more years of can-kicking.
And if you miss a SINGLE weekly payment????
A big, fat boner up the ass, that's what.
Sounds like stupidity to me. If I'm broke I'm certainly not buying a new sofa at all, definitely not buying it on EZ Credit payments....for fucks sakes, how damn dumb is the public? All thru college I sat on a 'sofa' made of cinder blocks with boards thru the holes.
The same public that bought homes with no money down, no savings, and no job.
The same public that actually believed that Jamie Dimon is richer than you and I because of a meritocracy and lets him keep this ill gotten gains while his head is still attached to his body..
Letting go of their illusions about their new stations would make Americans suicidal when they review the pain and indignity they've suffered over the past 20 years in the workplace. Mind-numbing, body-wrecking, spirit-crushing submission and tedium for most outside the top 1%. That seems okay . . . long as your props, trinkets and entertainments keep you from thinking about it. But without those, whaddya got.
Of course, I'd be remiss if I fail to note the upper middle class has their day coming as well, since--as you well know--the bag holders for the FED-inflated markets are the pension funds and 401k's.
Nobody escapes what will come . . . unless they're in a Gulfstream V.
Personal Responsibility.
How about we quit teaching socialism in school and start teaching basic personal accounting and math.
If people learned something about finance AND deferred gratification maybe America wouldn't be the land of the 80% indebted obese.
They don't teach Socialism in school. If they did, you'd know the meaning of the word.
What are the schools teaching then? It sure isn't Wealth of Nations. In fact, I read a couple years ago that a whole class at a northeastern college walked out on a course teaching Adam Smith's treatise. Only putrid Socialists, beyond all but radical reeducation would behave so.
Yup there is a sucker born every minute.
Imagine being the poor bastard whose job it is to recondition these sofas after they've been repo'd. I hope they wear HAZMAT suits...
Poor people buy sofas for a few bucks from Craigslist or pick it up off the curb for free from someone who has put it out for trash. I've known a lot of poor people and none of them who do anything as idiotic as what is described in this article. Instead you are talking about the middle class with a poor credit history.
The FED is EVIL incarnate.
Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and their like are EVIL.
FED = Bankers = Synagogue of Satan
Funny how they don't teach the perils of debt in skool.
Schools only teach you to be a consumer and borrower not a thinker and a saver. It is this ignorance that gives the 1% the means to vacuum up the 99% oft the wealth.
That's how slavery was maintained
Debt surfdom.
Thats it. I need a drink!
I know a bar where you can pay off your beer in weekly installments, put your plimsolls on and I'll meet you there.
The funny thing is that those who are kicking the can think they are scoring goals.
This article reminds of something that I kind of miss...What happened to the buy now and have no interest and no payments for 2 years! We bought all our furniture this way, since we were starting out in our first house and had zero money. I am proud to say that i no longer buy anything on credit cards...but those were the good ole days.
That special deal required a near extinct thing known as "good credit". It is still abundantly available in the form of 0% interst for 21 months credit cards. I get at least half a dozen of such offers every week.
I submit to you that if you are too stupid to be able to comprehend compounding interest and too impulsive to force yourself to sit on an apple box for a year until you can buy some furniture outright, then you have absolutely no business helping decide the course the country takes through voting.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the one gigantic taproot of all of the problems we are facing today. We never had any business divorcing taxation from representation. Taxes must always be proportional to voting rights. Any time you separate the two you create broken symmetry, which is another way of describing a broken feedback loop, and broken feedback loops always end in acceleration to the point of collapse.
simply put, that which cannot be sustained, won't be, period. No matter how much you cry and whine about it...
Even rich people would vote themselves a pay raise.
Strike the root if you want to survive, don't just whack at the branches.
It's not a rich versus poor thing, it's a human nature thing. The design must be built for human nature, thus cost/benefit must be tightly linked. Allow disparity, you allow broken symmetry, and humans will exploit the hell out of it no matter what economic demographic they come from.
Sure. I agree with that. But not the part about voting as being part of the solution.
It isn't. Limiting voting is.
the people you deem fit for your system can vote right?
Shemitah
I don't think I qualify for that program.
Thank goodness the government we pay over a trillion dollars a year to is watching out for our welfare and protecting us from such things! "I have a pen and a phone" - Obama. "I have no home and a loan" - average American.
" And democracies are safer and more permanent than oligarchies, because they have a middle class which is more numerous and has a greater share in the government; for when there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end. A proof of the superiority of the middle dass is that the best legislators have been of a middle condition; for example, Solon, as his own verses testify; and Lycurgus, for he was not a king; and Charondas, and almost all legislators.
These considerations will help us to understand why most governments are either democratical or oligarchical. The reason is that the middle class is seldom numerous in them, and whichever party, whether the rich or the common people, transgresses the mean and predominates, draws the constitution its own way, and thus arises either oligarchy or democracy. "
- Aristotle; Politics, Book 4
i guess the abbotts never heard of milk crates or bean bag chairs.
When you bail out financial criminals and predators, you get a criminal and predatory economy. If there’s one clear lesson from the 2008 crisis and its aftermath, that should be it.
I'm thinking of having that tattooed on my neck, if I can find an artist to do that on a weekly payment plan </sarc>
That reposession is going to be fun!
Reminds me of when I was really young. TV ran advertisements for HFC or Home Finance Corporation. They specialized in loans to poor folks, home owners used equity from homes, cars or whatever. HFC was big on loan consolidation loans. Or bill consolidation loans, whatever you owed, you went to HFC, they wrote you a high interest long term loan you used to pay off all your creditors and get them off your back, you then owed HFC a massive high interest loan for ages to come. They had many other schemes to get poor people to borrow for short term debt relief, and long term debt slavery. I expect that HFC got bought out by the PayDay Loan sharks. HFC really was the original store front loan shark. I was in debt trouble when I was in the military, you know how an 18 year old living on 150 dollars a month can party himself into debt. I used HFC as a sort term bridge loan to prevent a creditor contacting the command structure, you were fucking dead if a creditor contacted the Navy. I used the loan to escape trouble, and then worked hard to pay it off and forget it. They pressured me no end to borrow more! They were just like sharks. Once they wrote a loan for me and approved it, then asked me to sign for it! I looked at it, and told them to fuck off! They then really got pissed off, used every pressure technique to get a kid like me to sign for more loans. I refused. BUT, I can imagine less skilled people being trapped in their loan schemes. I knew the meaning of a bridge loan, even at 18, and that is how I handled it, HFC was a real expert at creating debt slaves. The mother of Pay Day Lending!
HFC didn't break fingers or worse. So they're not loan sharks. I knew loan sharks. No such thing as defaulting. HFC is in the business of selling money. You were the target market of that particular store front, (young, military, regular income, most likely not bright...the client base, not necessarily you). Instead of being mad at them, congratulate yourself on not being dumb enough to sign for expensive money you didn't need. The manager or employee you dealt with didn't make much more than you did and their income may have been production based as well. If you weren't going to take the money, someone else will.
Problem is, the general populace is incredibly ignorant when it comes to contract law and how our monetary system works. It makes them easy to dupe. I had never even heard the terms fractional reserve banking or fiat currency until after I had graduated high school.
HFC (& Beneficial) were bought out by HSBC in the early 2000s and are both now defunct.
HSBC - so much to hate!
What's the old saying - 'A fish rots from the head down'...?
First and foremost, good money pays for bad. So, the person who makes all the payments and keeps the sofa is also paying for the customer who defaulted. Second, if the business model is that out of control why isn't Tyler Durden or the Washington Post going into the rent to own business with a more competitive pricing model? The cost of entry into that business is the ability to have a facility, employees and and an importer. Also, capital that is your own or from investors.
I did collections back in the 80s in this area of the debt market and there are some really good people but you realize they just lack certain understandings on how to do things. Eventually, a pretty good percentage go bad on payments. And it's not because of the rates but the amount of borrowing and overextension past their income of borrowing to service the principal let alone the interest,usury, etc. Investors get into that business with thoughts of easy money to be made. You have to be well capitalized, regionally diversified, and have employees that aren't lazy and willing to chase down money. Oh, and you should see that employee pool, not much above the client pool.
I'm no longer connected to market but it was a life learning experience about people.
First and foremost, good money pays for bad. So, the person who makes all the payments and keeps the sofa is also paying for the customer who defaulted. Second, if the business model is that out of control why isn't Tyler Durden or the Washington Post going into the rent to own business with a more competitive pricing model? The cost of entry into that business is the ability to have a facility, employees and and an importer. Also, capital that is your own or from investors.
I did collections back in the 80s in this area of the debt market and there are some really good people but you realize they just lack certain understandings on how to do things. Eventually, a pretty good percentage go bad on payments. And it's not because of the rates but the amount of borrowing and overextension past their income of borrowing to service the principal let alone the interest,usury, etc. Investors get into that business with thoughts of easy money to be made. You have to be well capitalized, regionally diversified, and have employees that aren't lazy and willing to chase down money. Oh, and you should see that employee pool, not much above the client pool.
I'm no longer connected to market but it was a life learning experience about people.
Now that we're hearing about the business model, it is too late to get into it. There is only so much fleecing of the poor and the stupid before there is nothing left to fleece, and the business model will go kaput.
Money lending has been around since the beginning of time and so have the poor and ignorant. Neither are going anywhere. The reason this market exists is so that it can be regulated. The best way to reduce this market is to improve the economy, create jobs where those who are smart enough to figure it out, can pull themselves upwards by their bootstraps. How do you change local societal culture? The concept of leaving what you know? As much as people would like to think otherwise, the terms of the loans/purchases are spelled out in detail to the client. They know what they're paying, even if they couldn't do the math.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding people, but I find that many live beyond their means and get impoverished by that very lifestyle. Priorities seem to dictate much of a person's lifestyle.
We lived in a far nicer home and area than most of my co-workers/supervisors with much higher household incomes than we had. Yes, they bought new vehicles, and ususally far more expensive than we did, and they went on vacations and cruises, and ate out often...therein lies the differences in priorities.
Really?!!!
Most poor people are not that stupid
No one is forced to rent to own furniture and no one "needs" new furniture.
The concept of delayed gratification and saving is just foreign for some.
It is just a question of priorities vs economics as anyone who ever compared leasing or buying a car can attest.
My 1st couch was a well used hand me down, my 2nd a thrift store purchase.
After college I "rented to own" some furniture once when I knew my stay in a city was temporay but wanted a nice couch to hang on.
When it comes to 'furniture' stores, one man and 1 man only, comes to mind...
"Hi Kids...!!"
"Bye Kids...!!"
I know poor working folks who can't afford a new car or even a used one, so they rent one from one of those companies that operate like this furnature store. My neighbors explained the deal to me and I knew it was terrible, but they had no choice. Where I live, you need a car to survive. You don't need a couch to survive.
The used car market is expensive thanks to Obama's first term car buy back program. Supply was pulled out of the market that would otherwise mostly still be there.
The difference between me and someone whos poor and pays 5000$ for a sofa
They walk into a store order a sofa priced at 2000$ put it on a credit card, pay the min payment + interest and at the end they pay double + what the sofa is worth.
I walk into a store, ask the guy how much he will cut from the price so I actually buy the thing, if he sells it for 40% off his price maybe I buy it, if not, I simply say no thank you, go home, build my own fucking sofa.
A sofa is nothing but a GARBAGE wood frame with some upholstery, for the price of sofas in a store I can. . build the frame myself and hire 8 people to do the upholstery work and pick it up a day or two later.
So far in my house I have built
-My backyard (poured a concrete slab)
-My own bed frame
-My TV stand
-My desk
-My computers
-My 2nd floor
No credit cards required
I refuse to pay monthly for things. . . look at microsoft now with their "office 360" pffft what you want me to "subscribe" to Excel and word every year? seriously? I would sooner use an older version of Office than do that, or I will simply just use alternative software that does the same thing anyway. . . . or just crack the fucking thing (what 60% of the world does anyway)
The world is going crazy. . . people are renting their homes furniture for 20$ a week for a sofa/tv stand . . . its crazy who does that? how stupid do you have to be to do that? if you are that poor that you cant afford a sofa and coffee table, get your fucking lazy ass off the floor, go to home depot buy 8 cinder blocks (2~3$ each) stack them into corners and place a nice piece of finished ply wood on top, THERE IS YOUR FUCKING COFFEE TABLE for around 60$
Jeeez wake up America
I appreciate your self reliance. I, too, try to be as self reliant as possible.
However, I do want to point out a flaw in your post.
The whole software world is going to the rental route. it's all about money. They'd rather rent you their software than sell it to you. AutoCAD and Microstation have already done this. And those fuckers charge thousands per license. AND, you can't use an older version forever. They don't put out updates or services packs. So, at some point you won't have a computer or software that function. It really is outrageous, but I can't write my own drafting and word processing and emailing software, so I guess I'll have to rely on using the company's computers after microsoft et al has driven me out of personal computer ownership.
Rackets? But you CAN still draw with pen and ink.
in our business we do drafting all the time for shop drawings and as built, we still use cad key and autocad from the 90s you just go online and find converters to up-version or down version the files, there is no difference from autocad 2001 to autocad 2016 a line is still a line.... just a small hassle to keep your save files compatible \opening newer formats.
that being said no one accepts hand drawn submitions anymore it looks too unprofessional .
its sad these companies price their software so high when the new version doesnt really do much of anything different or better
I have seen plenty of hand-drawn engineering and architectural plans that put Autocad plans to shame. Works of artisanship. You could instantly see what was important, and why, and you could read everything. Heck, all the plans for all the stuff built in the sail revolution, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the TV/radio revolution, and the nuclear revolution were hand-drawn.
That's fantastic, it really is. We've done a lot of our own sweat equity over the years, but not like your experience.
Yeah, we said eat shit to microsoft word a few months ago and bought WordPerfect 7 on CD for $45, about 1/6th the cost of Word for one year.
I walk into the Thrift Shop on the day when furniture is 50% off and buy that $300 sofa for $150.
As for tables, stands, etc., I do like you, or build something out boards and plywood. That way I can build it exactly the way I want it.
I think one problem that people in debt have is that they have televisions and iPads and magazines, which never quit telling them to go ahead and buy one more thing. If thy television offend thee, give it to the Thrift Shop, and then go to the Library and get some books, CDs, and DVDs, and enjoy those. Save all that money for a trip somewhere interesting.
Few people make a distinction between "dumb poor" and "smart poor" but it is quite real. When we lived in Maine, I was often struck by how many "smart poor" lived there. My wife and I would have a yard sale once a year, and members of this group would arrive early to get a perfect child's coat for $1 or the older version of a drill I'd updated for $2.
These yard sales were always immensely satisfying to me, because a person who buys a perfect, $50-at-retail kid's down jacket for $1 feels empowered - possibly empowered enough to gain some skills and escape poverty - while a person who gets the same coat for free from a charitable organization feels like a worthless loser. And the difference between the two is just spending $1.
I frankly don't know the solution to the problem of the "dumb poor." Probably the best one is constrain sleazy rent-to-own stores and the like to be as up-front as possible about the total expenditure these folks will pay. The other is likely just re-establishing a culture in which people who exploit the "dumb poor" are widely reviled. Legal or not, ripping off the dumb poor is simply the lowest crime to which a human being can sink.
A normal valued person probably feels worthless, but I've observed mass throngs for "freebies" right down to pencils and paper.
Maine has intensely cold winters. That culls the dumb poor pretty quickly.
I believe Malcolm X talked about this a lot. I believe he kept telling African Americans they should star their own tiny stores, and shop at those stores, and keep their money in their community. That's what other successful ethnic groups do.
The "PURGE" is coming soon. Time to cull the dumb-fucks back and harvest new new batch of serfs and slaves.
Fingerhut has been around forever
http://www.fingerhut.com/
My grandfather, who raised two kids during the Depression, bought a lot of socks and other underwear at Fingerhut.
notable that the cover has a story on the reprehensible Rahm Emanuel taking Chicago by the reprehensible Jonathan Alter.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/meet-the-new-boss/30...
http://www.wbez.org/blog/bez/2012-03-23/does-it-take-outsider-find-truth...
Emanuel will likely run for president one day, and he will have the backing of everyone who actually matters, the fact he managed to make Chicago even worse and even more corrupt won't matter at all - since he's doing it for the benefit of the right crooks and liars.
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/26/a_black_site_in_chicago_police
OMG!
I pledge defiance to the flag of the united socialst states of america
and to the oligarchy for which it stands, one nation under surveillance, enslaved,
with tyranny and oppression for all.
I renounced my Pledge about 5 years ago. Can't even stand to stand for the Pledge, but the scene created ain't worth the trouble, so I stand and nothing more.
none of this behavior is new. been around for 100 years. the ONE BIG DIFFERENCE is that all the loans are now backed by the gov so lend to anyone....
What VICTIMHOOD self-pitying garbage!
If you can't afford a furniture ensemble, DON'T BUY IT.
If you DO buy something you can't afford, don't bitch about the consequences of living beyond your means.
I agree that predatory lending is everywhere, but then there is personal responsibility. You can a lot of really cheap furniture on Craiglist or goodwill. You won't get any tears from me on this... Don't buy crap you can't afford. Period. I don't care what your parents had. Wahh
"They bought it at buddy's? oh the irony...
Benjamin Shalom ("Buddy") Bernanke ? :-)
George Walker ("Buddy") Bush?
Barack Hussein ("Buddy") Obama?
Hillary Rodham ("Buddy") Clinton?
Caveat Emptor (sp) no longer has any role for the Land of Bleating, and the Home of the Slough. We bought a floor display leather sofa for 1800 and a few weeks later, we saw the exact same (manufacturer/model number) in a upgrade Western furniture store for more than $11,000, in Fort Worth. I was so dumbfounded that I had to tell the management about it. They just looked at me.
Twelve months ago my brother called and said he needed a van as he had lots of work on. For the fact he helps mum get from A-B, as and when, and would be emptying her cash point of the monthly monies i send her i purchased that van outright, not believing in credit. Now the guy is a top top roofer and plenty of work is available. Last week he texted me that he was taking said van into the garage for repair as the brakes and other parts needed a fix. So we have a cunt who has had his own free van to go about his business for over a year texting me that i should call the mechanic to pay the bill. The equivalent of $750. Just one example over the years of how siblings are complete opposites in all manner of ways. If it wasn't for my mum then i wouldn't even bother responding to the constant palava in his donut life.
I'm astounded at people's lack of backbone and see how easy they make for lambs to the slaughter of the money lenders.
I can rent a freaking pizza and then puke it back at the parlor. NICE.
60 years ago, much of the US population did not have access to "credit." One, because the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had not yet financialized the US economy, and two, like today, many poor Americans simply have too low incomes or are bad credit risk
Now, our TBTF financial system makes money by pushing debt down the system, and at the same time, society sees credit as a "right."
Like many "rights" we have discovered in the past decades, we find that many people simply use their "rights" self-destructively.
People who use credit as a convenience, rather than a conveyance understand what the rich have had access to for so many years before the rest of us.
Sorry, I'm not buying the above story unless I have a lot more information about the individuals and how they run their lives. No question, times are tough but similar stories could be given to illustrate the intense neediness of those receiving disability. And we know there's astounding fakery in that program.
South Carolina reduced the period unemployment checks could be received and in short order its unemployment fell substantially. Extrapolate.
There are the truly needy but its no secret so many people bring their poverty upon themselves, subsidized and purchased with excessive government welfare programs.
Dude, it's a fact these rent to own stores operate like this. How much more info do you need? Instead of worrying so much about those that "bring their poverty upon themselves, blah, blah," why not concentrate on the bankers that are jamming a big red, white and blue dick up your ass every minute of every fucking day? Why not give some thought to the military-industrial complex that wastes more money times infinity than all the poor slobs "bleeding the welfare system dry?" Try to see the forest for the trees.