Introducing Bloom: The Future of Credit

I applaud what these guys are doing, there are definitely serious flaws with the current credit markets driven by government regulation, but I’d like to draw attention to one aspect of the post:

“In countries rich and poor, access to credit is a fundamental cornerstone of social mobility. No matter your age, gender, language or nation, credit is the key driving force to boosting prosperity.”

To be clear, this is simply untrue. Access to stable SAVINGS is a cornerstone of social mobility. Look at the industrial revolution, which drove the largest increase in standard of living for the largest number of people in human history, and it wasn’t due to increased access to credit — it was due to having a relatively stable currency and increased SAVINGS (without savings there can’t even be credit as there’s nothing to lend).

The path to increased freedom and equality in society isn’t more people being in permanent debt on their house — it’s having a stable currency that allows people to save their money and pay mostly cash for assets like their house (ceasing to rely on credit to purchase a house will lower the average price of a house).

Bloom could do much more to promote equality and freedom in society by facilitating access to and promoting stable currencies (e.g. by dismantling central banks and letting the market return to more stable currencies such as precious metals or by making it easier to buy and store Bitcoin, which could potentially replace all fiat currencies used worldwide even if governments refuse to dismantle central banks, which is likely).