There’s your problem. Canada doesn’t have green cards.
If you are referring to permanent resident status, that’s a different thing.
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I’m another with zero credit footprint. I just use my debit card and try to live within my means. I’m lucky to be in a job where that is possible. I’d hate to fall in to the clutches of the credit card companies or, worse still, the pay-day loan sharks.
I pay off my credit cards every month and have an excellent score. I do use them on a regular basis however. Cash doesn’t give me 2% back on every purchase.
We’ve gotten to the point where if you never touch your credit cards you look suspicious, like someone trying to stay off grid or hiding their income.
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Isn’t that a problem? I’m not saying that we should or shouldn’t use credit cards (I think it should come down to what an individual feels most comfortable with), but how much of the shift to credit/digital payments is tied up with the quickly growing surveillance state and at what point should we be concerned with that?
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I’m not saying if it is good or bad, I’m just stating my view of the world we live in. Creditors have enough information now that if you’re actively avoiding credit they don’t trust you.
In some ways this makes sense. If you’ve proven that you can live just fine with no credit, then their primary punishment–making credit more expensive–won’t be effective against you. They have less leverage over you if you fail to keep your end of the bargain, making you a bigger risk.
The problem arises when people use credit scores for things they were not designed for, like determining if someone will be a good candidate for a job or if they will be a good tenant in an apartment.
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I don’t understand those of you who say they have no credit footprint. It’s a lot easier to function in America these days with a credit footprint. Note that this doesn’t mean you need to actually be paying interest!
Get a credit card, use it every month. Pay it off in full. With a decent card this will cost you $0 unless you don’t have some free means of making the payment. Do this for long enough and you’ll have a very good credit rating–and meanwhile you’ll be racking up the rewards. You actually make money.
Our credit rating hovers around 800 just from this, we don’t pay interest, the last installment loan we had has aged off our credit report by now.
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Excuse me if I’m skeptical when Chinese officials say they won’t abuse this gigantic and largely unaccountable system. It’s basically credit scores, but more arbitrary and easily manipulated for political purposes.
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While credit ratings aren’t intended for such use that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. You don’t really think they going to the expense of doing it if it’s not beneficial, do you?
A poor credit rating means you don’t pay your bills–and landlords care if you pay your rent. Of course they look!
Jobs are more nebulous but credit ratings do relate to general responsibility in life–and employers like responsible employees.
The problem is when credit ratings get wrecked by misfortune rather than irresponsibility. A long history of a good credit rating (something that doesn’t appear on your credit report!) says a lot about a person even if there’s a crash.
How long before we are all subject to our credit scores to deternine citizenship and personhood?
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Agreed. I thought Ian was a bit naive. Sure, the stated guidelines don’t look that bad–but how carefully are they going to follow them? It’s a tool they could use to harass dissidents, and the odds are good that they will.
If they don’t, it’ll most likely be because the system never gets off the ground.
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I think you’re correct, but I’m leaning towards the “not a good thing” camp, if I’m being honest. At least with cash there is an entity determining its value that we have some democratic control over (even if we are at a remove from our central banking system, we can at least elect public officials who have a hand in appointing members of the board and in shaping other aspects of our monetary system). With private corporations doing more of the dictating, we have even less say in the monetary system, I’d argue.
The thing is, it’s not like it’s bargain between equals here - giant corporations have greater control over how we spend our money and in how we think about the value of the dollar, too. A shift to an all credit system essentially means that there is another set of entities (private, for profit banks/lenders) who will end up determining value, meaning in a market driven economy, pretty much anything we want to do that requires money (which is more of our society than ever before) is now being in part directed by private corporations…
But that right there IS the end game, deciding who is worth being included in the category of full citizen.
I just think this is some stuff we should be considering when we’re thinking about the future of money.
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All well and good for those that want to. But it should be optional, and the resulting score should not be used for anything other than determining what types of credit cards and interest rates the card companies want to offer you. Do you disagree?
And about those rewards…
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Denying people the ability to make a living or housing is not exactly helpful! They’re not doing this for our benefit, they are doing it to make a profit. These are profit driven corporations, and they should not be in a position to make such deterministic decisions, I’d argue.
Not necessarily not, it does not. If you live by paying for stuff in cash or checks, then you’re paying your rent. People should not be denied housing because they made the decision to live within their means. If you want a higher homeless population, this is precisely how you get it.
This is the vast majority of cases. Most people are not frivolously out partying and screwing up their credit rating. Most people fall into bad financial times due to illnesses or job losses.
All it says is that you already have some means and you know how to play the game. That’s all. We are not wigets in the market, we’re human beings.
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Your credit rating is nothing more than a measure of how often you spend beyond your means. It’s a way to measure your addiction to debt and has absolutely nothing to do with your ability and consistency in paying bills. Drink the kool-aid if you must but don’t tell me it’s wine.
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“The US Department of Homeland Security has published a new proposed rule that would make people ineligible for US citizenship if their credit-scores were poor.” Following the links provided in the article and reading the actual proposal I discovered that this isn’t true. The decision being made is about eligibility for admission–not eligibility for citizenship. The document is concerned about the the applicants likelihood of becoming a public charge. The applicant’s credit score is one of many factors the DHS is proposing to assess in order to determine the applicants ability to financially support his/herself.
On the other hand, “I can’t trust myself to use a credit card responsibly” is its own message. Using a credit card doesn’t necessarily mean you are living outside of your means. In fact about 39% of the US population pays them off in full every month.
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Not always, but the appearance of credit cards back in the early 20th century does indeed correlate with a rise in debt held by private citizens and people saving less and spending more - it’s part and parcel of the modern consumer economy (which we all participate in, one way or another).
But the 39% tells me that the majority of people who do use credit cards do so because they’re either spending outside their means, because they don’t care or because they have to. I’d be interested to see how many people have credit card debt due to critical issues (health care, cars breaking down, other unexpected but unavoidable expenses) vs. people who are living frivolously.
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I assume you meant to say “are not”.
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Loyalty cards and credit card rewards are very different things.
Yes, Fixed!
