by vanderburgt on 9/21/19, 11:05 PM with 189 comments
by dumbfoundded on 9/22/19, 12:24 AM
This is just trying to solve a symptom with a deeper problem. The real problem is that our judicial system is absolutely cowardly towards corporation prosecution. If you actually just sent the responsible people to jail or actually bankrupted the worst actors, the situation would improve. This impacts everything from the financial industry to oil & gas to credit to privacy rights on the internet.
All of these companies get away with anything they want because we don't send the execs to jail and we rarely fine them more than the profits they made from doing the bad thing.
by mc32 on 9/22/19, 12:07 AM
On the other hand, it must not transform into what the CCP is doing. It has to stay true to being a proxy for credit worthiness —that is all. No handicapping either or dings for "unapproved" ideas, behavior, purchases, etc.
by mighty_bander on 9/22/19, 1:09 AM
by kebman on 9/22/19, 1:14 AM
by propter_hoc on 9/22/19, 12:26 AM
by joegahona on 9/22/19, 12:40 AM
I have never paid to see my credit score, so I'm not sure how this is novel?
Also, are things not going well at Vox? 900px (height!) of ads at the top of the page along with Outbrain trash and numerous right-rail ads and inside-the-content ads (on desktop) do not give the impression of a thriving publication.
by olliej on 9/22/19, 12:09 AM
OTOH Governments have a tendency to pass laws the make suing them very hard even when they do screw up, so who knows what the ideal solution is?
by jeffdavis on 9/22/19, 2:28 AM
It is a democratic monopoly, but democracy among 300+ million people is a big hammer. Do you really, actually think that this will be a well-run service where mistakes are quickly corrected?
No. It will just be an extra layer of protection for any mistakes that are made. At least private companies have to fear the government at some level... who does the federal government fear when it does somethihn unfair? The voter? Hah.
by jonahbenton on 9/22/19, 2:32 AM
Eliminating racial bias is admirable, but is not a thing that we have any idea how to do in any computationally rigorous way, certainly not as assumed in that language.
Modern credit scoring for anything that matters involves lender and context specific analytics. It's a much richer process than the imagined single monolithic FICO score.
In this world, giving a single entity a monopoly in generating these bespoke scores is, simply for mechanical reasons, a complete non-starter.
The way to deal with profit-oriented lenders making what seem to be unfair credit decisions is to have a credit process that solves for fairness, not profit. That amounts to starting from a place of making capital grants, something the government is very good at, and which would be a better angle for Bernie to be taking.
Andrew Yang's UBI proposal could be tweaked to optionally, at the receivers request, treat the grants in part as low interest rate loans, allowing receivers to create a credit history if they so desire.
by someonehere on 9/22/19, 4:08 AM
by egdod on 9/22/19, 1:58 AM
by throwawaysea on 9/22/19, 4:09 AM
by no_wizard on 9/22/19, 3:15 AM
I think we should just go back to what we did before credit ratings, which was basically best due diligence and requiring just a little bit more documentation for a loan application
I also think in lieu of this the government can be a net positive here. In the EU this is the norm from what I understand
by zxcvbn4038 on 9/22/19, 8:12 AM
by tempsy on 9/22/19, 1:14 AM
I like the idea of killing off the existing credit rating industry, though. I would prefer it just be heavily regulated as a utility and run by an entity outside the gov.
by caseysoftware on 9/22/19, 12:44 AM
Here's the key quote:
> "Last year, the The Intercept published a government document that spelled out the process for putting suspects in the terrorist database. The guidelines say agencies can nominate candidates for the list if there is “reasonable suspicion” to believe they are a “known or suspected terrorist.” That’s a relatively low bar, and the guidelines even make clear that agencies don’t need “concrete facts” or “irrefutable evidence” to back up their assertions. The guidelines also give a single White House official unilateral authority to place entire categories of people on the no-fly list."
We can only guess whether the public credit registry will be run with the same, better, or worse level of care and due diligence.
And before you say "omg Trump!!11" note that this article is from June 2016 and the leaked guidelines are from March 2013.
by onetimemanytime on 9/22/19, 5:20 AM
by PeCaN on 9/22/19, 12:32 AM
by gremlinsinc on 9/22/19, 8:28 AM
Love the idea of a totally open credit bureau that values privacy and does not use medical loans against us. And has full transparency....
I do however not trust the government as we've seen w/ Trump it could easily swing from leftist egalitarianism to rightist fascism in 1-2 election cycles. Then they could use credit scores as a weapon.
I think instead the government should create a regulation platform for credit agencies where they must follow certain principles to be allowed to operate as such including:
* No medical debt.
* Full transparency on how credit scores are scored -- perhaps even being required to use a government sanctioned algorithm.
* Free credit reports to consumers and other tooling.
* Must provide free counselling and support to consumers.
* May make profit from government grants + charging businesses for report access.
* Must offer ways to notify consumers when their reports have been accessed, by who, and when, and allow consumer to revoke and remove access at will.
* Must be protect privacy EVEN from government agencies, to ensure highest level of security for consumers.
Edit: a nice addition would be if they did have more integrations with government programs though, so say every citizen in the credit system is an automatically registered voter in their most recent locale.
by wilg on 9/22/19, 9:58 PM
by wpdev_63 on 9/22/19, 10:58 AM
by Simulacra on 9/22/19, 1:48 AM
by hansdieter1337 on 9/22/19, 6:05 PM
by jakeogh on 9/22/19, 3:29 AM
by fzeroracer on 9/22/19, 12:55 AM
The rest of his plan involves shrinking the usage of credit scores so that it doesn't affect employment, housing or insurance so I imagine this would lead (ideally) to the general phasing out of the ubiquitous credit scoring nonsense we have to deal with.