Better not to own a credit card in the first place, with so many people in so much debt you really should be questioning the notion that there's a 'responsible' way to use a credit card.
Liquidity and debt help societies and people. It’s just important that you pay off the card before the 18% rates kick in. But there are smart ways of avoiding these rates for a long time. For example you can roll over your debt into new cards before the interest rates kick. This could allow you to keep debt for months without paying any interest at all.
The problem with debt is when you use it purely for consumption instead of investment or increased efficiency of your consumption. But in general, debt and leverage are a very powerful thing and essential to an efficient market.
Interest helps a small portion of people, while harming the majority.
>It’s just important that you pay off the card before the 18% rates kick in.
If enough people did that banks wouldn't bother.
>The problem with debt is when you use it purely for consumption instead of investment or increased efficiency of your consumption
No, it merely mitigates the risks, if your business venture goes sour you will not be in a good place. There's also the question of 'what counts as an investment' although this is a minute issue compared to the aforementioned.
> Interest helps a small portion of people, while harming the majority.
Would you rather that no one could get access loans? If you truly believe that position, it would very much undermines the autonomy and choice of the people without capital: businesses, individuals, start-ups, whatever.
If you think that interest is a bad thing, what is the alternative? Sharia finance? You wanna go back to times of usury laws? Or that Christians can't loan to other Christians?
What about government? You think there should only be negative interest rate bonds? What about the federal funds rate, LIBOR, T-note yields, etc? Do you have a coherent system that could replace these financial instruments?
>Would you rather that no one could get access loans?
If they had interest then yes.
>If you truly believe that position, it would very much undermines the autonomy and choice of the people without capital: businesses, individuals, start-ups, whatever.
Without interest the amount of capital those groups would need would significantly decrease. I'm willing to sacrifice a reasonable amount of autonomy in order to stop people burning themselves and devaluing the earnings of others.
>If you think that interest is a bad thing, what is the alternative? Sharia finance?
The alternative is a number of things working together, sharia finance yes, the end of fiat currency, guaranteed minimum income to get those without capital to a point where they can contribute to society and a restoration of trust based society so that those with close bonds will be more likely to loan to each other interest free and out of good will (this is probably the most difficult of the three but I have some ideas).
Okay, how about you give me $1000 and I'll pay you back when I die. I'm good for it, I promise.
If so, I'll give you my bitcoin address.
The time value of money is so fundamental, and so obvious, that you must be being deliberately obtuse to not understand it. Money today is worth more than money tomorrow.
>Okay, how about you give me $1000 and I'll pay you back when I die. I'm good for it, I promise.
I have no reason to trust you.
>The time value of money is so fundamental, and so obvious, that you must be being deliberately obtuse to not understand it
No one's saying time doesn't have monetary value, it's a variable many businesses depend on, but that shouldn't mean you simply get to do the direct conversion and sidestep creating meaningful longterm value and make it more difficult for those without money to get anywhere without being under your thumb.
> all debit cards nowadays have the same protection
Sure but then you will be missing that cash until that protection can be dealt with. On a credit card, it's not your cash that has been stolen, you don't have to care, you move to your debit card.
On the other hand, your cash got stolen, you have to wait until it's handled to get a refund, and you need to use credit instead with cash that you don't have.
Depends on the rental company and the rental contract. A lot of renters want a credit card rather than a debit card, as assurance you can pay additional charges/fees/damages should they occur. In cases where I put down a credit card, I usually see a hold on the card that's 20% higher than the rental contract, but that gets replaced with a regular charge later.
The extent to which this is necessary varies from context to context. For example, whenever I've been at an airport location, the rental companies have said they can only use a debit card if you have an itinerary with a return flight. Presumably you're a lower theft risk or something.
I'm sure it's all negotiable and/or there are a dozen other conditions where they will accept a debit card. Things like having a rewards membership or good rental history, purchasing insurance through them, using AAA, etc. Honestly even within the same company, the specifics seem to vary by location.
Presumably some rental companies don't have such a policy at all because low-credit individuals are a large portion of their customer base.
Huh, I've been told this is effectively impossible. I believe it was related to the need for a large security deposit. However, this was mostly in the US and western Europe, maybe it's different elsewhere.
