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Comment by eyelidlessness | Hacker News Reader

Overdrafts were the second thing that came to mind, a decade into clawing my way out of poverty and just plain being broke.

The first was the scam of debit cards and secured credit cards being treated fundamentally differently. They both operate basically the same way for customers (you’re only spending your own money, it’s not credit in the lending sense), but debit cards are a profit center with no credit reporting for the customer and secured credit cards can be recommended or not in any discriminatory way anyone wants (which they are).

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What do you mean by secured credit cards can be recommended is any discriminatory way? I definitely think the nation should prioritize financial literacy in the education system, but I'm not sure you should be trusting any information you get from a bank regarding what to do with your money.

What I mean is that for customers, secured credit cards and debit cards have roughly the same risk, but banks have obligations to offer checking accounts fairly but offering the equivalent credit-building account is up to their own discretion. It’s considered lending even though they’re lending the customer their own money.

Do you feel that the "discretion" violates the equal credit opportunity act? Technically, credit discrimination is illegal, but I could see a bank taking liberties with people who don't have the means to protect themselves.

Given that the risks to “creditors” (banks lending money back to people who own that money) are equal for debit and secured credit cards, and that the risks to “debtors” (people who would be using their checking account to build a neutral-at-worst credit history)…

Having the means to protect yourself is the baseline definition of a secured credit card. That’s why it’s secured. You’re starting with some positive balance and spending your own money. That’s what debit cards are too. The liberty banks take is choosing who gets to benefit from their normal spending of their own money being considered as credit at all.

Well they work like debit cards in a way, you can't overdraft and you build credit with it. It's what's recommended for newcomers to the US. But I'm not sure they're really the same given that your credit limit will be as high as the spare amount of money you can keep as security in your bank.

Debit cards are a fraud? Living on borrowed money is a fraud.

It’s a scam that:

0. for many aspects of life you need positive credit history to live at all

1. debit cards don’t help you build credit

2. secured credit cards (your own money! not borrowed!) do

3. both function almost the same way, but the latter is much less equally available

And if you think “living on borrowed money is a fraud”, I suppose that means you think only independently wealthy people should own homes? Nearly no one could afford to buy a home anywhere without a mortgage.

That's a kinda chicken and egg problem. I could argue that the more financing you give to people, the more they're gonna be willing to pay, so this actually drive prices up.

How about the printed money?

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