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Comment by xattt | Hacker News Reader

I’ll be the 10th man and add to the nihilism. Consumer protections are there not for the consumer, but to create some sort of artificial social stability through recourse and take the wind out of any social uprising.

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I'm confused by your nihilism. If the outcome is that I can get my money back (and I would argue that 250k covers a VAST majority of people, and then some), isn't that a fair trade for me not killing and eating a banker?

True consumer protection would allow people to have immediate remediation (rather than on a weeks-to-months timeline), and also hold the responsible parties accountable beyond a fine that’s a rounding error in terms of profits.

Consumer protections are likely to be 3 months out from the point of impact. As the saying goes, we're all 3 hot meals from the end of society.

If we're in a hypothetical world where a major bank lost say millions of bank accounts and for some reason it was going to take months to correct it would hit the news, there would be emergency legislation blocking eviction, utility shutoff, and debt collection, and interest accrual as well as all the lost bank accounts being credited with a some amount as combination fine/stimulus.

The fear is when it's just you.

Landlords tolerate eviction moratorium with covid because only a fraction of their tenants stopped paying.

I think a scenario where just a few million or whatever were effected you are correct. However if it was almost everyone, landlording would become a straight up mob. You'd have to employ violence and bypass the state to maintain the properties and enterprise. No one would rent out property the legal way if they couldn't collect the rents.

> However if it was almost everyone

By the time it got to this another disaster already happened

You are assuming that the institutions offering the protection will follow through for when you need them to. I don't mind people who do believe these promises made to them, but I certainly understand those who don't.

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