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"Would You Finance Your Kicks?": Shoe-Backed Securities Are On The Way
Meet "Affirm", a startup from PayPal co-founder Max Levchin whose mission is, according to the "company" section of their website, "[to use] modern technology to re-imagine and re-build core components of financial infrastructure from the ground up… focusing on improving the lives of everyday consumers with less expensive, more transparent financial products."
Can’t decipher that? That’s ok, neither can we.
Fortunately, Affirm sums it up more succinctly in the "buy with Affirm" section: "pay over time for your most important purchases."
Now we understand. Essentially, what Affirm does is "connect directly with online stores" and then loans you money to buy things from said stores.
But not just any things.
"Important things."
Like $1,000 Air Jordans.
Here’s Hypebeast:
Longing for that rare pair of kicks that you need to have but can’t cough up the money? That doesn’t have to be a problem anymore, because Flight Club is now offering financing options for up to a year. Leaders in the consignment game, paying for these pricey kicks has always been an issue especially with younger consumers as prices can go up into the thousands. Much like buying other pricey items such as cars, houses or jewelry, you’re now able to finance goods (borrow money) from a credit company as long as you agree to pay it all back, with interest. Partnering with AFFIRM, Flight Club kicks such as the ”Fragment” Air Jordan 1 is at $123.01 USD a month, while the Nike Air MAG is at $702.90 USD a month. This seems much better than coughing up the total amount at check. The process seems simple enough:
Enjoy your purchase immediately, with no hidden fees. Provide some basic information and get instant approval to split your purchase (up to $10,000) into 3, 6, or 12 monthly payments with rates from 10-30% APR. Just select Pay with AFFIRM at checkout.
Hypebeast then asks: "would you finance your kicks?"
And while we'll plead the fifth on that question, it's only natural for us to speculate that given the success of recent ABS offerings from Springleaf and OneMain, and given the fact that "other" consumer loan-backed ABS supply is expected to come in at around $30 billion this year, it may be only a matter of time before pools of loans for shoes are run through the Street's securitization machine and sold to investors as a tradable security and on that note, we'll leave you with the following original schematic for tranching loans-for-kicks:
(Note: this assumes that the more expensive the financed pair of kicks, the more creditworthy the borrower)
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What no Vans
Oh, the sanctity of it all, filling the holes in one's souls with more Temporal crap, by "focusing on improving the lives of everyday consumers with less expensive, more transparent financial products" to finance the purchase of the crap that owns them.
Dear God, perhaps the time has indeed come to strike down mankind.
"Muh Jordan's ain't temporal, yo. Deys permanent!"
I would never, ever finance my shoes,
but I do have an acorn squash on layaway at Whole Foods.
Some Day...
You know you're at the end of good collateral and rehypothecation when....
OshKosh B'gosh
While technically I am corp IT, I am corp IT in Alaska, which means I get to wear these classy rides during board meetings (with a buck knife my old man gave me - no one cares):
https://www.justinoriginalworkboots.com/footwear/technology/electrical-h...
While I don't oil them like I should, these things are Mack trucks and hold up to ice, snow, slush, creeks (I love to pan!), and damn near anything else I subject them to ... and they have tons of legit safety ratings.
While the full spec PDF was giving me grief, it is probably my crappy connection ...
http://www.poronxrd.com/performers/docs/justin_metguard_release.pdf
... these are extremely high quality, with composite steel toe, electric hazard ratings, waterproof, and vibram soles (the cats ass if you ask anyone where I live).
Shipped to my door? A bit over 200 bucks. How long do they last? Several years of great Alaskan outdoor abuse with zero care. When do I replace them? When they start leaking and my wool socks get wet.
Fuck these idiots who pay (borrow) hundreds of dollars for ... shoes. This shit is precisely what is wrong with the country.
Regards,
Cooter
EDIT: And these laces last longer than the boots ...
https://www.ironlace.com/product/ironlace/
... I say this because my one bitch is the factory laces are cloth style and wear on the grommets and break fairly quickly.
I use a simple white shoelace as my belt. They last for years - am really bummed whenever I happen to lose one out of a traveling situation or something. Thanks for the Ironlace link - I'll have to order some of those for a pair of hiking boots I need to pick out (my old ones lasted about a decade). Maybe I'll switch over to an ironlace belt while I'm at it. ;-)
I walks round wiff ma mos spenciv wears you can git.
My bare fucking feet.
Better redeem that acorn squash soon or it will turn into an oak squash.
THE NEW BOOT CAMP.
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but wasn't expecting it to be this.
Cant pay?
It's off to the beet fields for you, comrade.
That time came when edible arrangements became a successful francise. We are way past it. Time to be smote! Smite? Stupidity is just out of control.
deleted
I would never have guessed a Hymie is behind new ways of bleeding morons dry.
They're coming out with a new brand of shoes, kikes.
Now I can rent my rims and make payments on my Jordans? Off the hizzle mah nizzle
And to think when I was a kid you had two choices for sneakers. Ked's red ball jets or Converse Chuck Taylor's in any colors you wanted as long as it was black or white.
A thousand bucks for tennis shoes? No wonder we are in a credit bubble. If I would have asked my Dad for a 1000 dollar pair of sneakers I would have never have needed another pair, as a size 11 D brogan would have been permanantly placed in a certain part of my posterior anatomy.
I made dad buy me a $100 pair of skate shoes once. Totally out of his budget range, but he did it. More fashionable than utilitarian (though claiming to be), they ripped in the first couple of weeks of skating as with most skate shoes. I shoe-gooed that thing over and over until the whole toe region was just shoe-goo.
2 for $50 used to be standard skate deal at most places with decent volume. We skaters lived a long time off that affordable rate. Now it's at least $40 a pair, and the quality is shittier.
What are "skate shoes?" And, who in the fucking, fucking fuck pays $9,000 for a pair of sneakers?
What brand are skaters wearing these days?
Vans? Etnies? DC?
@MMP: "Skate shoes" are regular sneakers, usually suede/nubuck/pleather/etc. with a reinforced toe cap and extra stiching in the toe area where skaters flick the board and the abraision of the shoe against the griptape wears down the shoe the most, and reinforcement in the heels where you land the harshest (many models in the late 90s/early 00s had airbags). The oldskool soles used to be waffle, but they got flat/groove molded rubber ones now.
Check out some shoes at skatewarehouse. eS and Emerica are a couple of the legit companies.
http://www.skatewarehouse.com/menshoes.html
@ spekulatn: I see a lot of people wearing Nikes. They've really infiltrated the market. I still run into skaters who oppose that shit though, and stick to good ol shoes like DC, Emerica, Etnies, eS, Lakai, Vans, etc. DC is for the bro-ish crowd. Etnies are not too common. Some oldskoolers and die-hard Vans fans stick to the classics (with laces), even for skating. It's a mixed bag among the non-Nike/Adidas crowd. Check out the above link for a glimpse into the shoe market today. I wish I had the presience in the early 2000s, peak skate shoe, to have done whatever it took to put aside a few dozen pairs of skate shoes for the future. Sigh...
p.s. I'm actually skating a pair of Adidas I managed to pick up for $30. They look great, comfortable as hell, and the toe-cap hasn't ripped open from my industrial-strength flicking. Totally what I wasn't expecting from corporatopia.
" ... extra stiching in the toe area where skaters flick the board and the abraision of the shoe against the griptape wears down the shoe the most ... "
Sign of a misspent youth. (Just kidding.)
Over here the Irish Sheeple last week queued, yes queued, overnight outside a certain Dublin department store to buy some Kanye West designed footwear.
Fuckwits.
The unemployed have nothing better to do than wait to purchase items with other peoples' money.
It is nothing but NorthPlace and DKNJ for my family.
Who's going to repossess sneakers?
Stupid.
Compare the weight of a house or car to shoes.
LOL
Dey gonna garnish yo EBT;)
Nah....Dey gonna cap yo ass.
The authorities will put a boot on your shoes.
Tracking device Built into the shoes
No repossesion needed.
My guess is prices are doubled in the first place to make up for the 30% - 50% who default.
Punish the honest consumer , reward the deadbeat, pocket the difference.
I'm surprised that this does not surprise me.
ANd the latest indicator of the ever worsening idiocracy. Sadly the last indication was only earlier today...
I don't think there is one material object that can sum up how fucked we are as a society more than the shoe. The fact that people will pay such exorbitant prices, fight and even kill over a shoe made by slave labor that will be wore out inside a couple months just boggles my mind. The sooner this shit show falls apart like a semi-used pair of Nikes the better we are.
Can they be re-soled?
Yes.... when they move to the next chump.
I feel the same way about cars.
This really is the last shoe to drop.
Wonder if I can finance some baby Jordan's to hang from the mirror of my Oldsmobile too?
The fuzzy dice are getting long in the tooth.
I wear black new balances, mainly because if you wear black ones you can get away with wearing less dressy shoes. Never had to go into debt for them either.
Nike air sucks. They lasted 6 months last year and now they last 3 months this year. Don't ever buy Nike shoes.
Fvkcers ruined skateboarding, along with Red Bullshit and Mountain of Doodoo and a swath of corporate interests.
Cunts will spend exorbitant money on handbags and shoes. Fuckwits all. "I've gotta have the latest.........................."
Fuck you ye cunt.
I actually take pleasure in not spending money. Period.
Silas Marner
As a fellow cyclist and cheap bastard, I salute you.
Gave up driving 4 years ago - cycle most places, even at -30ºC (Canadian winters are definitely noticaeable!). No car payment, nor insurance, no gas to buy.
No cell phone, no TV.
Internet & landline are my only bill - same every month, so I know where I stand.
I hate buying shit. If I can fix something, I fix it. If I don't really use/need something I don't have one.
I make stuff that I enjoy using (Archery is a wonderful hobby)
The less you take part in the madness the better you will feel.
Amen.
The shoes I have are over 20 years old. Why? Because they're leather and they can be re-heeled and re-soled and they last a lifetime. I take pleasure from that. I love it that something I spent the equivalent €100 on 20 years ago, is still working for me and will work for me for a lifetime.
I am a cheap bastard. I've made the choice to opt out of spendingmoney. Don't get me wrong I've money, but I'm a bastard.
If the crowd are going in one direction I will go in the other direction. I've cut right back on the amount of food I consume. Why? Because I do want to spend money on food, I like losing weight and the shirts I bought 8 years ago fit me even better than they did at the time, as a result.
Buy new cycling apparel? Fuck you, I'm not interested in buying the new Team SKY kit, instead I'll continue to wear and handwash my old Binachi jersey. Some kid saw me wearing the jersey "where can I buy a cool jersey like that?" "Fuck you, you can't, because these vintage jerseys are collectors items, ye snotty little bollix"
I waste nothing. If something breaks down I try to repair it myself.
I acquire stuff over the years and leave it there. It also helps to be careful operating stuff. Look after stuff and it will look after you. And fuck spending money.
Get your kicks on Route 666
Hmmm, finance $1500 for sneakers, or wait until November for the Texas Ren Fest for these: http://www.catskill-moc.com/ , which go well with my kilt, or a sawed off shotgun. Wow, decisions! /s
This reminds me of the article about financing tires.
This seems to sum it up in several ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6c6eUeoa9Q
You know you live in an insane asylum when....................
I wonder what demographic they are targetting for these loans by featuring "Air Jordans"? Married, Asian, Women Age 35 - 48 for sure.
Retards buying over priced shoes, so they can leave the laces undone. Yet they seem to be able to run just fine from the cops.
Sneakers make my feet stink. I like flip-flops. For a thousand dollars I can buy 200 pairs of flip-flops with built in bottle openers from Alibaba.
Actually it’s very easy. He isn’t selling shoes or financial products. He wants to sell you the company stock he paid $0.01 per share for to you for about $60.00 per share in another IPO, then get the hell out and go on to start another bullshit company before it all collapses.
So basically it's just a pretentious version of Rent-A-Center where the sucker who signs up ends up paying much more for worthless merchandise than they would if they just bought with cash.
Question: If my collateral is transferred to a new owner, say a young disadvantaged youth (of no particular ethnic persuasion, of course) via, let's say, a mugging outside of the Footlocker, do the remaining payments and any accrued interest also transfer to said individual? Just curious.
Leasing shoes. Ugh.
Come to think of it, I'd like to rent that nice gold shirt that stud in India has.
Mexican snow shones on time payments.
I don't understand this - are there Air Jordans that sell new for $9000??!?!? Or are we talking about "collectable" used shoes here?
I can maybe see the ACTUAL shoes that Jordan wore in a Championship game having some value, but just an average guys stinky old kicks? Seriously?
How about used underwear - is there a market for that? Can I leverage up against an old pair of "Calvins' and use that money to buy options on 3x ETFs?
I think in Japan there is a market for used underwear (for horny salerymen can use as cum rags).
Collectable sneakers. They can be worth an amazing amount of money if you have the right pair.
Three years ago I bought a pair of sneakers at a yard sale for $5 - they were like new and they fit. After getting them home and taking a better look I realized they were kind of unusual, so I did some research.
It turns out I bought a pair of original 1964 Nike "Stevie Wonders" with the impossible-to-find titanium eyelets and in left-hand configuration. Two years ago an identical pair in similar condition sold at Christie's auction for over $900,000 to an anonymous bidder from Compton.
They're in the safe, next to my "Charlie The Moose" Bean Bag Baby (appraised value $500,000).
Have always detested brand names, would take labels off clothing.
Once, after watching Devil Wears Prada, I tried on a pair of their loafers.
I liked them and still wear them daily 4 years later. They are the best made shoe I have ever had. The soles are finally wearing out and the tops are getting scuffed. Easily a better deal than buying the 5 pairs of Florsheim I used to buy.
Rediculous!
This is beyond silly... but then again so were "carbon credits" when I first heard of them.