SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Maurice Winn who wrote (77062)7/30/2011 8:40:20 AM
From: Ilaine3 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218646
 
Silicon Investor, as I see it, is a place for people who have discretionary income and/or wealth which they can invest and hope to increase. Some people who post on SI are already rich, some hope to become rich.

My bankruptcy clients are not rich. Most are middle class, hoping to remain middle class, but in debt up to their eyeballs. I don't put them into bankruptcy unless their debt to income ratio is unsustainable.

Some got there due to loss of employment, bad health, accident, injury, divorce, death of spouse. This was not intentional, and I have nothing but compassion for those who got in over their heads due to accidents beyond their control.

Some got there more or less voluntarily due to bad choices because lenders held out shiny baubles that hid the intention to put them deep in the shit because that is the business model of said lenders.

There are people who never willingly pay a debt unless they are forced to do so. In the US, we call them deadbeats. For some of them, they are deep in the shit because of games lenders play with said deadbeats because it is profitable.

Voluntarily targeting deadbeats with credit they cannot repay -- that is a business model I cannot comprehend. I perceive that this has become a very profitable business model.

I do understand that with the use of force you can make said deadbeats pay something. You can foreclose on their houses, you can garnish their wages, you can repossess their vehicles, you can evict them, you can auction their possessions, but at what cost to your own soul?

And for the people who voluntarily take on debt that they have zero intention of repaying, what cost to, not just their soul, but their own wellbeing?

We no longer have usury laws in the US. And I think usury used to be unlawful for very good reasons. There is no reason to lend to deadbeats unless you can charge them high interest rates because of the risk entailed in such loans. And therein lies all the tale -- why loan at high interest rates at great risk, without the understanding that you have put the borrower deep in the shit with the expectation of using force to get repaid? What kind of rich person takes on such a burden? I have to say, not a good person.

I detest this. I want to become rich, not because of usury, not because of victimizing deadbeats and poor people, but because of increase due to innovation. I think this is probably true for most of us.