What do credit scores, college accreditation, and investment ratings have in common?
All three are gatekeepers in moving around the Economic Grid, and all three are bullshit. Nowadays, you can’t even rent an apartment without references and a good credit rating, and credit rating has become a sort of good citizen score. In fact, some people are starting to screen potential mates based on their credit rating. Ironically, carrying no debt lowers your credit rating or even paying it off too soon can damage your score. It’s all based on an algorithm that indicates how reliably you can make money for the person in power.
College accreditation is becoming another high profit golden ticket for private schools charging up to 4 times the amount of overpopulated state universities and community colleges. The college dream has become another profit-taking venture aimed at selling a dream state to unsuspecting young people bound for pizza delivery and cable install jobs upon graduation — if they’re lucky. With more Boomer retirements being placed on hold, the expensive jobs are being held by older Americans who have no intention of going anywhere.
Investment rating firms are dogshit as far as I can see. These guys are holding a giant shitbag for rating all sorts of investment instruments that were trash as “AAA.” This is sort of like awarding a 3-pound sewer rat “best in show” at the Westminster Dog Show and having everybody applaud — except your life’s savings is hinged on it and rating agencies are getting paid to do the judging. It is quite simply one of the biggest piles of bullshit I’ve ever stepped in.
The whole financial “industry” (I hate using that word for non-industries) pays attention to investment ratings for some unknown reason. Today, a friend of mine who works at Standard & Poor’s told me that he just went through a full day of changing the company’s mission statement. Apparently now this corporation is concerned about the investor because, “it’s all about the investor.”
I had to ask, “sooooo, there was a mission statement where it wasn’t about the investor? Aren’t you guys paid to assess risk… for… investors?” No, I’m not making this up.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
So true! Since we’ve been cranked through the bankruptcy mill, I refer to our credit score as our “cancer score”, since the idea of taking on new debt is about as attractive as being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
And college, how people are baited with class envy to feed that debt machine! I was able to get a couple of scholarships to get me started and the co-op jobs paid my way to an associates degree and I got out debt-free and got an ok job without much looking. Now, my son’s cohorts get big student loans but the co-op programs are having trouble placing students and they graduate into a world where their age group has about 50% unemployment. Are we going to hear about the student loan default crisis next?
And investments! I guess you’ve heard that a couple of states, I think Ohio & New York, are suing BP for buggering up the state worker’s pensions. They never planned on the black swan, or the oily pelican.
That Crashing Sound is the collapse of the American middle class. Or maybe it’s just me. http://thatcrashingsound.blogspot.com/
I went to Standard & Poor’s website to read their mission statement and couldn’t find it…
‘I had to ask, “sooooo, there was a mission statement where it wasn’t about the investor? Aren’t you guys paid to assess risk… for… investors?” No, I’m not making this up.’
It’s a matter of sincerity. Once you can fake that the battle is won.
Any company that has a mission statement that says anything OTHER than “Exploit natural and human resources to accumulate wealth for our owners” is just fucking lying (this includes many ‘non’-profits).
The question is, whether the employees are willing to work toward that goal, or delude themselves, or they simply believe that a corporation is a “person” they are loyal to.
Artificial people can be assholes, too (in fact, are REQUIRED to be): regardless of how the lawyers fix them up in paper dresses. Why would you need such a thing as “limited liability” if you weren’t expecting to be liable?
cont’d:
Isn’t the creation of a “limited liability company” actually the glorified intent to commit SOME despicable act or to limit one’s exposure to the consequences of such intentions?
It’s like buying insurance to rob banks.
Deschain,
I’ll see if I can get it out of him this weekend. It’s probably unpublished because it needs to get through 7 more layers of approval.
Sean,
You’re right. I would actually rather hear a mission statement to the effect of: “to take down as much cash by all means possible as quickly as possible without too many people noticing and getting pissed off.”
or even, “to create a business model so complex that nobody can follow it let alone regulate it.”
At least we’d know where that company stands.
I forgot to mention that many people in the mission statement discussion believed their company mission statement was irrelevant. My only comment was, “if your mission is irrelevant, then your company is irrelevant. Do you think you should continue working there?” A better question may have been, do you think it should exist at all? You should not have to be convinced that what you’re doing is worthwhile. I think it should be fairly obvious, yet these symptoms keep popping up.
I know it’s very simple to tell somebody to quit their job when they’re mired up in the system, but I think this is where we’re heading as a society — lots of quit jobs and a return to value. If you are supporting something that simply exploits just to exploit without adding any sort of value or being mindful of the resources you’re using, then your organization will not survive.
Auntie,
I see your point, but LLC were formed as a reaction to a litigation happy society — which rewarded people for silliness. I’m not convinced that every LLC out there starts out with the intention of committing some sort of crime against humanity. I do think that most LLC’s start out with the intention of surviving a frivolous lawsuit.
Regarding college accreditation, and the bullshit associated with it, read Jane Jacob’s ‘Dark Age Ahead’.
Tommy wrote: “I see your point, but LLC were formed as a reaction to a litigation happy society — which rewarded people for silliness.”
Obviously, yes, but those lawsuits started out not being frivolous. They started when companies did horrible things to people and those people sued the company and the rich white guys who owned the company. The lawyers came along and said, “We can separate you from your company so that you can keep making money even though your company goes bankrupt for robbing people and making them blind.”
The bottom line is covered in your response to Sean: If a company is relevant, then it works as part of the conditions all around us and provides usefulness. If it doesn’t, then that company is just fiat, like the money it plays with: one more lie to add to the rest of humanity’s lies.
As a friend said: “Humanity may just be a void filled with tokens.”
It’s mighty hard to have a decent discourse with a token, but we can pretend quite easily, like talking to a TV. How many of the people we meet are actually deep in the belief of their tokens? How many say things they just heard on TV?
As Jean Luc Picard says, “Engage.”
I’m not sure why you would think your credit score WOULDN’T be a valid indicator of you the person? Sure a few people get into credit trouble through no fault of their own but MOST peope get into credit trouble because they are irresponsible.
Gone,
Here’s an example of why I think it’s bullshit:
My latest apartment required a credit score of 700 or better for both myself and my spouse. 699? No dice even if you make $200,000 per year and wanted to pay 24 months in advance. They won’t even consider it.
Credit scores are merely 1 piece of a financial life. Given the prevalence of errors and the lack of control the “consumer” has over the inputs, it’s a score with lots and lots of uses/meanings without much input from the person being judged. I think that’s bullshit.
My wife’s credit rating fell dramatically because we paid off all the debt in her name and she has not used any credit for over a year. Should we not be allowed to move to a (cheaper) apartment as a result? As it was, we made the cutoff, but I can’t help but think about the people who get absolutely hammered because of something that happened in the history. The reliance on this score is starting to effect employment and even acceptance into graduate school. Are you fucking kidding me? Hence the “navigate through the Economic Grid” comment. I am always going to advocate putting yourself in a position where your credit score doesn’t matter at all in your life. This is becoming increasingly difficult especially for young people. Now, young people need to do something ridiculous like “establishing credit.” This is nonsense and represents a full indoctrination into a failed system. That’s just how I see the situation.
Sure, if you take crazy loans, drive to Vegas, then crap your financial life away then you are irresponsible with your money. Gotcha. But, that’s not really what I’m talking about. The credit score has way too much bearing on a person’s life outside of getting loans… it is being used to judge people’s character.
I’m with Tommy. Your ’score’ gets dinged because you pay stuff off, or don’t use your credit card (I have one with a thousand dollars – free and clear – for emergencies). I know my credit score would be higher if I would use that “empty/dormant” card once in a while.
This is just complete BS – can’t get an apartment w/a score of 699? WHAT?? Run up credit cards, can’t afford your payments, you have no assets – sure – you don’t deserve that loan, or (nice) apartment, or whatever, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
What I want to know is this…
What sort of business could I start that would bring value to my community? What ‘industry’ can I tap into where I can build my own company and write a mission statement that I am proud of? I know that non-profits can be just as shady (or more so) than the corporate beast… what does a person do? Where does a person work? How does a person live? Even if you have no debt – taxes on your home, utilities (can’t afford to get off the grid), solid goods unattainable locally, etc. how do we make it happen?
Two points: 1)A rental is an economic contract. Of course they should pull a credit report! You might be able to argue that they shouldn’t be able to check your credit to get a job but if you can’t check the credit report to make sure they will pay the rent what would you check it for???
2)A contract, be it a purchase, a rental agreement, a loan, and even a job requires that all parties to the contract have a meeting of the minds. That is one or more parties to the contract are not scamming another party to the contract. A credit report accomplishes a major part of this by filling in the unknown. If you are not scamming the person renting to you why would you object to them knowing how you treated your other contracts relating to money???
Gone,
Ok, I’ll play.
First of all, a credit report is a single element of your financial life that often contains errors or weighs heavily against inaccuracies. I’ve got plenty of my own examples, and I’m sure there are plenty of readers with their own horror stories. It is entirely too much power in favor of creditors, lien holders, and judgments that may be completely unjustified.
I have seen credit show up on my report that I never applied for.
I have seen 60 days past due because of a trumped up $1 fee that was attached on credit that I had paid in full.
I have seen mistakes on my report that endured for 7 years despite repeated attempts to get it off.
The very fact that the onus is on the consumer to ensure the accuracy, yet no effective vehicle is in place for dispute (unless you want to pay or wade through a whole lot of bullshit) tells me that it is bullshit.
I have been told on the phone, “our records show you owe us $XX” when I owed nothing. I ALWAYS respond with, “well, my records show you owe me $50,000. When do you intend to pay?” What makes your records better than mine? Oh yeah, we’re citizens and don’t have the same rights as corporations. Bullshit.
Many of these contracts will only accept a certain score and don’t care of you intend to pay six months advance rent or if you’ve got a job making $300,000 per year. Don’t make the cut, and you will lose opportunity.
We live in a system where paying cash is suspect. You can end up on a government watch list. Your rights can be restricted. It is considered unsafe and abnormal. Bullshit.
We live in a system where your credit score decreases as you de-leverage. Bullshit.
We live in a system where simply looking at your credit score lowers your credit score. Bullshit.
I’ll tell you that my credit rating is stellar, but who cares? I do not believe this is an indication of how well I manage contracts. For me, it’s a testament to how much I hate credit reports. It’s a testament to how much I love abusing people on the telephone who can change your life from a computer terminal 7000 miles away. It shows how relentless I am and how insane I will become if I lose a single opportunity in my life because of a stupid, bullshit citizen score. Yes, I will go insane if I can’t rent a cheaper apartment because my score is 699 and not 700.
There are much better ways of protecting yourself. It’s called, “being a part of a community.” If we lived in a free society (yes, a pipe dream) there would be no need for a credit report. But, we don’t.
Can you imagine Plains Indians, Buddhist monks, or Aboriginal Austrailians pulling credit reports and saying, “I wish I could help build you shelter, but you had a lien 6 years ago for a $19 speeding ticket where the check was never cashed…”?
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
I don’t think it’s progress.
I should also mention that I’ve been a landlord. I rented to a couple with outstanding credit and they set up a meth lab in the basement. Credit scores are meaningless.
If credit scores were meaningless the landlords and others who wish to do business with you wouldn’t waste their time and money with them. Obviously they are not meaningless. Your problem is you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to play fast and lose with your contracts and hide that information from those who would contract with you.
Credit scores can serve a purpose for loans- that I will agree with. If you are going to lend money of course you want to know if a person is trust worthy and is going to pay back but the inconstancy and the errors between the 3 bureaus is BS. If they are to be allowed to hold us up to the highest standards they deem fit then they should do the same and find a consistent way to accurately record ones past credit history. But they are like all other business and are all about making money; telling you how to live so to buy more products but not living by the same standards (kind of like Streisand and her environmental hoopla).
Now where I have to disagree with you Gonewiththewind is this:
“I’m not sure why you would think your credit score WOULDN’T be a valid indicator of you the person”
Just because you have a low credit score does NOT indicate what kind of person you are. Just because one choose to live inside their means and not play the credit game and pay for only the things they can afford at the time doesn’t mean they are irresponsible; in fact quite the contrary. If more people lived inside of their means and were responsible then this county wouldn’t have the economic problems it’s having; yes, it wouldn’t of had the economic growth it has had but it would at least be more stable with less care for possession and more care for the fellow man next to him.
We as a society have let these companies do this with our own walking around blindly and valuing shinny pretty things; gotta have the bling….
I do hate the inaccuracy of the credit bureaus but in order to have a car that I don’t have a 100% cash for, I have to play the game too
The elitist have me under their thumb but I will guarantee this, they will never see me by a 25k+ car with a 500 dollar monthly payment (what a waste) so even though I have to play their game they won’t get me completely… Muahahahahaha.. 
p.s I don’t agree with credit checks for jobs. We makes mistakes on our own and sometimes we trust the wrong people who hurt our credit (the good old ex’s) and that should not keep anyone from having a better future by having a better job or a job at all…
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