The US has relatively generous bankruptcy laws. Many people go through bankruptcy and rebuild their credit over several years.
It’s not true that you’re a “slave for the rest of your life”. Student loans (which are much lower interest rate and nothing like these loans) can’t be discharged in bankruptcy but even those are open to modification or discharge in the event of hardship.
> I’m seeing posts here making it sound like 36% APR is acceptable.
These are exactly the type of loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. The people requesting these loans had almost certainly been denied lower interest rate loans because they were likely to go bankrupt.
The alternative isn’t that these people get lower interest rates. The alternative is that they don’t get approved for any loans at all. Frankly I think that’s the best option for most of them, but that’s not really my choice to make. It’s theirs.
> It’s incredible how folks, particularly in the US, have become this morally uncalibrated.
The US gives people a lot of freedom to make their own choices. Still, we do have a lot of protections, but even those are delegated to individual states. In fact, many states do have laws that limit interest rates to as low as 4-5% (bank installment loans). That doesn't mean people in those states are all entitled to cheap loans, but it does mean that anyone with poor credit can't willingly enter into high-APR loans even if they need a short float until their next payday.