In communist China, they have a social credit score that the authoritarian government uses to lock "undesirables" out of participating in the market. You can't even take a train.
the really awesome part about the credit bureau thing is that they have access to all the financial information about you to compile a report for any corporation willing to subscribe to their service (and those corporations provide info about you to the bureaus, naturally), but it's up to you to confirm the information's accuracy and monitor it for fraud, etc. what a business!
a few years ago, one of them got hacked and leaked a shitload of peoples' confidential/identity info. there was a class action suit and ultimately the payout was a few hundred bucks if you could document/prove that you spent time monitoring your credit in the aftermath, but mostly they wanted people to sign up for their credit monitoring / identity theft prevention services which they offered like 6 free months worth or something.
since the 70s, when wages started falling in relation to productivity, the crisis of reduced demand was averted by the rapid expansion of consumer debt. so, by now everyone has a credit card, student loan debt and there are 120 month car loans and 50 year home loans. so naturally, an entire industry pops up to crunch numbers for book makers (debt providers/services) to run odds and calculate terms for offers, assign rates, and market your debt to other providers. E F F I C I E N C Y
like imagine if people were just paid what they were worth, education was covered, healthcare was covered, cars weren't necessary because we had infrastructure, and housing wasn't an investment vehicle... it was just housing, and you could rent to own from a national bank for like 0.5% interest to cover the cost of the paperwork shuffle. how much extra would our communities have to invest in climate resiliency, conservation, public health and innovative primary research?
"How much do you pay for rent a month?"
"It's close to $1600, but there's all the utilities and--"
"Yeah, so this mortgage is $1200, so I don't think we can trust you to pay it"
"If we give you a mortgage, who's gonna pay your landlord's?"
I was informed that f-r-e-e that spells free credit report dot com baby does not impact your credit score, ensuring that you don't end up selling fish to tourists in t-shirts and can be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard.
One weird trick finance doesn't want you to know about!
is this sarcasm or are you being serious, I can't tell
the funniest part is when he pays it all back that’s when his credit score will go down
in gommunist china the dystopian megacorps secretly calculate a score bound to your identity that controls whether or not you will be allowed to buy a house and many other basic necessities of life, and you are not allowed to see the score without penalties
