First of all, let’s try to avoid American-bashing, and stay respectful to everyone.
I’ll start: for me it’s the tipping culture. Especially nowadays, with the recent post on !mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world with the 40% tip, it just seems so weird to me to have to pay extra just so that menu prices can stay low.
Which is basically your consumer data …
Yeah that’s not lost on me either. Part of the double-edged sword I suppose. On the plus side it helps me build credit because I pay it off every month and it grants me certain luxuries from time to time that I wouldn’t normally be able to afford.
But isn’t the whole concept of having to ‘build credit’ insane? In the Netherlands we don’t have that
How else would you know a person’s credit worthiness when you are being asked to lend them a million dollars? What would you use instead?
If you have any outstanding debts, that’s recorded in a registry (BKR), so the banks won’t give you a loan (you won’t even be able to buy a phone on credit).
If you have no outstanding debts, you are not registered at BKR, so the banks will give you a loan according to their internal formulas (e.g. if you don’t have a high salary you won’t get a €1 million loan, but you might be able to get a €300.000 one).
So I guess it’s like a negative credit system: if you’re not credit-worthy, lenders will know (due to being BKR-registered), and otherwise you’re assumed to be credit-worthy (in accordance to your salary).
If we want to buy a house for example? A copy of your registry of fines where you get an entry for not paying an invoice or such, your income and your savings are taking into consideration over here.
Of course it’s insane. Unfortunately it’s not exclusively a US issue.