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Comment by dimitar | Hacker News Reader

This is finance. Anon is storing his assets, dealing with uncertainty.

In 'Poor Economics' there was a chapter about saving in West Africa. Apparently the way some people there do it by contributing some money in a pool on a periodical basis and each time the group meets, the pool is immediately given to one member, whose turn it is. So if you are in $10-per day group that withdraws once a month, you can be sure that once every 30 days you'll withdraw your $300, without worrying too much about banks, withdrawal fees, etc.

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It's actually very widespread in all sorts of countries and cultures.

There was a good Planet Money show that talked about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/18/193176928/episode-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susu_(savings)

What is going on with that Wikipedia article. The first two sentences are written badly to the point of being incomprehensible.

If you understand German (I couldn’t find the French version) you can also watch this about the same principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2LYK9x9eM&t=325s

It’s basically identical to the Susu in the Wikipedia article you linked to (and many of the same points are made in the radio and TV show), but this time it’s called a Tontine and it’s being used in France (imported from Africa): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

The Tontine described in that article is a bit different from what you were describing and from what Susu is – but the Tontine described in the TV show is basically identical to the one described in the radio show.

I think this idea first appeared in the United States. I'm sure there's a story about how Ford sold the Model T. Few people could afford to purchase up front, so groups of people joined together and paid a set amount each month. Say $50 amongst 100 people. Each month, they'd buy a Model T and a few lucky people would get the car. So, rather than 100 people waiting a year to purchase, on average they waited only 6 months. That spawned the creation of mail order, then revolving credit, and the Western world has never looked back.

Wow. What a great idea. Worst case is exactly the same as if you just saved up the money the old way. If there was 160 people doing this for 500 a month for a new Tesla, I would probably join.

The worst case is that the people without Teslas are taking the people with Teslas to collections.

Even if everybody plays fair, some people are likely to have bad luck and start missing payments.

I've heard somewhere that, until recently, in Myanmar sim cards were so expensive (couple grands each) that they were used as assets (like gold teeth, but more convenient to use).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandas

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