7Figures2Commas

> Apparently they found recent grads with very large student debt load but commensurately high future earning potential had inaccurately low credit scores.

Credit scores measure the risk of future default based on past borrowing behavior. A borrower's credit score is not "inaccurately low" if there is little to no past borrowing behavior to apply the credit scoring model to.

Lenders can and frequently do take into account criteria other than credit score, such as income, when underwriting loans. In some lending markets (mostly commercial), individual consumer credit scores aren't even used.

That Earnest and other upstart lenders are choosing to more heavily weigh factors other than credit score is not particularly interesting. The true test of their underwriting criteria will come in the next down cycle. Having worked in this space, I should point out that there are many consumers with high incomes (or high earning potential) who are vulnerable. As such, I'd suggest that income and earning potential alone are of limited use in underwriting. It's not uncommon to see borrowers with high incomes who also have very low credit scores because they were over-leveraged and had serious negative credit events occur.

I can assure you that you don't have to be a member of the the 0.1% to profit in a downturn. If you can buy shares of stock and call options, you can short shares of stock and purchase puts.

Of course, you'll never win much sympathy profiting from sanity. If you want sympathy, help "grow the economy" by leveraging yourself to the hilt and blaming evil bankers when your debt catches up to you. But please recognize that you're not really growing the economy; you're just mortgaging your future.

> ...we've been in this cycle of "easy money, spend spend spend" followed by "crap, bubble". Sure there's money to be made on the upside, but there's even more to lose on the way down.

I'm sure this comment will be downvoted, but there's just as much if not more money to make on the way down. When people, companies and governments take on too much debt, and capital is misallocated, incredible opportunities to profit are created.

> Agh, this thread is just full of people boasting about their immunity to interest in Facebook. Congratulations, you're fantastic, oh that we could all be as enlightened as you.

> That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.

> I'm not sure what the answer to that is.

I'm not on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. (and I'm probably one of a very small minority who has never had accounts) and I wouldn't consider myself "enlightened."

I think "the answer" is to reflect on what it is that adds value to your life and what subtracts value from your life.

If your personal use of social media is focused on activities that you conclude are beneficial, there's no reason you should stop using it. On the other hand, if your use of social media is making you less happy, you should treat it the same way you'd logically treat anything else that makes you less happy.

Unfortunately, as these studies demonstrate, a lot of the people using social media aren't happier for it, and more problematically, many clearly aren't reflecting on that.

To a large extent, yes, but social media has made faking a lifestyle you don't lead even easier. Anybody with a smartphone and a desire to portray themselves in a particular light can do so pretty effectively with very limited intelligence and skill required.

Except for the fact that most of what the Johnson's appear to have is contrived.

This unhealthy obsession with eating in tech is starting to give me indigestion.

I represent a seller with a property in South America that might meet your needs. Are you in the market?

Thanks for your feedback on the quality of the architecture. Are you suggesting that I try to come in with a starting offer of $350 and see if we can close somewhere just north of $400?

If you're suggesting that the member banks of the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks have banded together to manipulate Fed policy so they can stick it to retail banking customers, please do yourself a favor and research how the Federal Reserve System operates. The policy decisions we're discussing are made by the Federal Open Market Committee and Federal Reserve Board. If you educate yourself as to their composition, you will quickly see that member banks, let alone a handful of large member banks, are not calling the shots.

The "sagging interest rates" are a product of Fed monetary policy, and much of the fee-generating behavior you describe has been motivated in some part by the Fed's monetary policy too. But please don't let that stop you from blaming the banks.