It Ruined Everything’: Buy Now, Pay Later Drives Gen Z into Debt

Hmmmm... spending money you don't have is how modern economies work, to a great extent. Companies take out loans to fund investment when cost of capital makes sense. People take out mortgages to buy homes.

> However, the financially irresponsible tend to blame the tool (eg credit cards) rather than becoming more responsible, and, in the case of this article, Gen Z seemed to have fallen prey to a similar tool but with a newer name.

Well, there is a certain class of loan products that preys on people who don't deeply understand how our financial system works. That understanding only comes from experience. How much can you truly blame someone when the "tool" is designed in such a way to take advantage of them. Lenders obscure the cost/risk, use advertising to make it seem like free money, etc. They target young people, because they are the ones most vulnerable to such tactics, and they can probably work for a long time, so you can make a ton of interest odd them, especially with the current bankruptcy laws.

The system is designed to obligate people to use credit, and I can see how tempting and easy it is for someone that lives paycheck to paycheck to use their credit card and carry balance.

Edit: I wanted to add. News websites have a habit of blaming gen z for all the different issues but forget to blame the system. Gen z is poorer than previous generations, and that should be highlighted everytime they're blamed

You basically just described loans. So the mortgage industry.

I'm not looking forward to bailing people or companies out for being irresponsible again (referring to 2008 housing, I'm fine with student loan forgiveness).

Many around ~20 don't have a sense for financial responsibility yet, and will rack up debt without being aware of the consequences.

Banks & Co. couldn't care less though, a young person in debt will have all its life to pay up, so why not just shower them in money.

Meh - I've spent money I didn't have when I was younger - life is short, what was a lot of money back then is irrelevant to me now and that's expected (you earn more the further you go in your career). I can't go back to twenties now no matter how much I saved back then.

Never used a credit card before?

Why are credit cards regulated pretty strictly for this, but these loans aren't? That doesn't sound like personal responsibility to me... that sounds like regulation doing its job...

I am not saying teaching the subject in school is bad idea nor should it not be required schooling. I just think this solution is too utopic.

Keeping people financially illiterate makes a minute subpopulation of the finically literate very wealthy. In other words, I think the system, albeit vile, is working as intended (sadly).

It’s all really, really ugly.

It’s interesting though… if historical parallels return. When a man owes little money, the bank is in power for the relationship. When a man owes a mountain of money, he’s in charge. Banks can’t magically force customers to pay what they don’t have - and politicians won’t accept having tons of people on the street with their assets seized. I would see the higher credit card utilization statistics as something to panic over if I was a bank. It crosses into potential en-masse default territory.

There need to be more ways to build credit... but that's what's doing this currently in our society and it seems to work pretty well...

I know not everyone agrees, but as a Muslim, it's really tough for me thinking of starting a business without loans from a bank. I'll eventually have to find an investor, or better save up enough to get started slowly.

    As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
    I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
    Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. 

    We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
    That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
    But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
    So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. 

    We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
    Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
    But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
    That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. 

    With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
    They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
    They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
    So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. 

    When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."  

    On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
    (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
    Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."  

    In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
    By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
    But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."  

    Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
    And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
    That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. 

    As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
    And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

    And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
    When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
    As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The whole idea that inflation eats into future debt assumes that your pay inflates alongside your expenses.

Inflation doesn't magically make debt cheaper, your rising salary does.

I have a mortage in Poland. Base rates went from 1.5% to 6.75%. My mortage’s monthly payment went from 1792PLN to 3200 PLN (~715 USD), where 3000 PLN is interest. This is not big enough to bankrupt me, but 1000 PLN is a lot of money here and a lot of people feel the pressure so our govt enacted law that lets you move four rates in a year to the end of mortage for two years, effectively extending the mortage by 8 months, but at no base cost of mortage changing.

Wages are decreasing. Companies are using inflation and recession fears to not just stagnate wages, but actually lower them. Public and private sectors are doing massive layoffs.

No. This is a bad idea.