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I don't understand this. Why did they sign up for a $2000 loan if they could barely afford it?


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Because it was a loan ?

I had the impression that this was happening because they had excess cash and nowhere particularly interesting to put it. Why would you borrow if you have cash sitting around and expectations of a good-to-crazy rate of return?

Yes, that's a loan. Who the hell would do that?

I'm sure that some people can't afford to live and take these loans. I've also personally known people who take them because they're terrible at managing money, and they make impulsive choices.

Because loans are cheap

I'm curious to know how these loans became such a political issue. It's unusual to take out a loan and then complain about having to repay it. That's how it is supposed to work. We don't typically reward people for digging themselves into a hole by bailing them out. Unless they're large corporations. We bail them out in certain cases. But I don't think that's a popular idea either.

an unsecured loan at a low interest rate doesn't make sense.

I can't see the logic in it either, by the time they're done paying off a typical loan even for the $87k variant, you would be up into triple figures for it. It could have cost as much as some people's homes.

That doesn't make sense. Banks don't make unsecured loans of that size.

Because it’s a loan they get to take out, interest free.

You'd probably need to read the contract they make folk sign to get a real idea of why. It could be that the contract structures it like a loan.

Because of risk. Just because there's 10k people out there that can afford to borrow and repay, doesn't mean you set 100k loans hoping you got some of them.

This is exactly it. Now if LendUp would lend someone $200 for 30 days for a $1.50 (APR of 9%) they wouldn't be extortionate in their rates, but they would be leaving money on the table that they could be taking from people who really need a loan. And what lender ever likes to leave money on the table?

The majority of lenders would not give loans to people who could not afford them.

...That's kinda stupid. Maybe no one was in a position to loan that much money. Or maybe nobody wanted to? Could be any number of things.

Because it's a dumb predatory loan that should never have been made in the first place. There is a type of business for making dumb loans and using force to ensure they are paid back: the mafia.

The mafias of old are nothing in size when compared to the student loan industry.


It's funny how banks are liberal to give Million dollars loans to someone who has no "official" income. Sounds like there might be a bubble there.

> The only other option is not to give them loans at all even if they put up a high down payment.

Yeah, I don't see the problem with this.


I mean, you're not getting millions of dollars of funding. Also, people get rejected from 100k house loans for much less than this...

Didn't the loan place a lot of restrictions on them? You have to trade off the low interest rate against that, especially when the rate they are getting with the bonds isn't that much worse.
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