The Banking Crisis of 2025. Bet on it.

 

(Just don't use a gambling app to do it.  And don't try to convince me that gambling apps aren't related to the Buy Now Pay Later phenomenon.)

Klarna, Affirm, AfterPay, and all of the other Buy Now Pay Later "services" that have been created or will be created in the time it takes to type out this post are working yet another game of hot potato, this time with millions of "small" debts packaged and sold from bank to bank and then from debt collection agency to debt collection agency- because the companies allegedly taking on debt by fronting stupid, financially illiterate consumers the money they need to live beyond their means are not even building their business model on the return of that money plus interest.  You know, like actual banks.  

Instead, this is all about collecting fees.  These companies charge a fee to every business they can talk into accepting their "service" on the theory that the Buy Now, Pay Later option encourages additional spending (a theory that seems to be holding up in fact.)  That fee is collected every time a customer picks the BNPL option.  Then Klarna, Affirm, AfterPay etc. simply sell the debt to someone else, washing their hands of it and walking away with the money.  When the system crashes under a mountain of unpaid and unpayable debt, no problem- their books are clean, and they'll move on to the next scam.

It's so ingenious, it's a wonder it took so long for us to come to this.  I mean, shopping online is in it's third decade already.  Shopping using phone apps is in it's second decade.  I'm guessing this shift from old-fashioned credit card use and Layaway is just another product of the economy?  Or another jewel in the crown of our consumerist I Want It Now I Need It Now I Deserve It Now culture?  

Probably a good guess, considering that credit card companies, which I thought were already the epitome of Buy Now Pay Later Convenience, are getting into the BNPL business by copying the four-easy-payments strategy of Klarna, Affirm, AfterPay, etc.....that's right, the people who brought Buy Now Pay Later to the masses after World War II are now going all-in on...Buy Now, Pay Later.

Whatever the reason, between Buy Now Pay Later and the normalization of gambling, we are headed into the abyss here and the third (or is it fourth?) near-Depression of my lifetime is just around the corner.  Bet on it.  But not with an app.  

That iPhone 16 Commercial that is nothing but Rage Bait

 

Every once in a while I see an ad that I instantly think I should comment on in this blog, only to have second thoughts that go in one of two directions; usually, it's "this is do dumb, it descends into self-parody and is therefore untouchable by me," but sometimes it's "this ad is designed to elicit an angry response, and I'm not falling into that cynical trap."  This ad definitely falls into the second category, but I'm going to briefly comment on it anyway.

The "joke" here is that two alleged adults are going on and on about the features of a phone Mom acquired that day, and two preteens are listening in convinced that they are talking about sex.   Yes, it's weird and uncomfortable and goes on for way too long and as I alluded to earlier it's all designed to get people discussing the ad even if they are telling each other how creepy and inappropriate it all is.  Since I can scroll the YouTube comment section with the best of them I am not going to go into all of that because Congratulations Apple you got people talking, Mission Accomplished.  Instead I'll make one other point that I noticed but nobody else seems to be talking about, maybe because it fits perfectly into Commercial World but not so much into modern reality.

Mom tells her husband that she has something to show him, and it's her new iPhone 16.  He's casually interested in seeing it and the rest of their little talk has to do with it's features (sort of.)  At no point does he ask her why she got a new phone, or how much it costs.  So she just went out and bought a new phone Because She Could?  Was there something wrong with her "old" phone (presumably, the iPhone15?)  The base price of the phone she is showing her husband is $800, and with the features she presumably is showing off it tops out at almost twice as much.  Did we miss a conversation between these two in which a decision was made to spend maybe $1500 on a phone?  

I'm being serious here- Mom is talking about a phone which probably cost more than their washer and drier as if it's just some little novelty she found being sold by a sidewalk vendor that she thought looked cute and decided to snap up for the hell of it.  My very first question would be either "how much did this cost?" or "how long is the contract extension?" or at the very least "what the hell was wrong with that phone you spent a thousand bucks on six months ago?"

Especially in this economy, it's so damn off-putting to see people so casual about buying something that costs more than my rent, especially since we hear nothing about its actual value beyond that it glows if you push a button.  My coffee maker does that too, and it didn't cost an arm and a leg, and I won't be tempted to replace it next year.  Who the hell are these people and why are they so out of touch with the real world?

Point of Personal Privilege concerning the Purple Line

 

Those of us who are pedestrians in the Takoma area have only one real question:  Will the massive headache caused by the snail's-pace "progress" building this thing be worth constantly having to cross streets to account for sidewalk closures and go around intersections shut down for heavy equipment as this project enters it's eighth year?  But as one of those pedestrians I have another question:  Will I ever actually see this thing in operation?  Anyone who has ever followed a Metro project knows that the only thing more certain than the cost being far more than projected is the completion date being as arbitrary as those "Next Train Arriving At...." signs at the stations.  I don't know if I am going to be in the area in 2027, but even if I am I'd bet serious money that date comes and goes and the system isn't up and running Because Something Something COVID Something Something Unforeseen Budget Issues.  Meanwhile the dirt keeps flying and the crews keep standing around and the streets keep getting carved up so that sometime, maybe in the 2030s, things move a bit more smoothly around here.  Someone send me a postcard.

Just CGI out the phones and replace them with wallets, and this Verizon/ iPhone 16 commercial makes a lot more sense

 

In the near future, iPhones will be programmed to simply fly themselves out of your hands or their chargers(there is no third option; iPhones are always in either one place or the other) and to the nearest Apple store, where they will trade themselves in for the latest model.  Six months later, the cycle will repeat.  The phones will have Power of Attorney privileges to sign updated contracts; this will be sold to customers as a Time-Saving Convenience.  Those willing to pay an extra fee will have the new phones fly in and high-five the old ones as they pass, so that not even three seconds go by in which the owners* are deprived of their phones.

In short- this is creepy, weird, and way too real to be entertaining.  

*I'm not sure I'm using "owners" correctly here.  In a Person-iPhone relationship, who is the owner and who is the owned, again?

 

The average monthly car payment in the United States is currently just under $700.  The average American car owner is using almost one-third of his monthly income to make that payment.  The average American car owner is also $6500 in credit card debt and is paying more than $2000 per month in rent or $1200 to a 30-year mortgage.  Use of "buy now, pay later" services is exploding as we are assaulted with appeals to indulge the You Only Live Once lifestyle sold to us 24/7 from all sides.

In other words, being "iconic" is not something that most of us should be concerned about.  Being economically viable, keeping our heads above water, and continuing to tread as we desperately avoid drowning in debt better describes what most of us actual Americans Who Don't Live in TV Commercial Land are dealing with. 

We are approximately six weeks away from the annual onslaught of Lexus December to Remember Ads.  This insult is going to cause more injury as 2024 winds down.  Brace yourselves, my fellow Iconoclasts. 

Affirm is an unfunny joke on dumb consumers that will break the economy

 

...along with Afterpay, Klarna and all the rest of these awful "Buy Now, Pay Later" apps.  Why?  Well, the obvious reason is because they encourage overconsumption and debt.  They do this by offering what are usually interest-free installment payments over a short span of time.  Since consumers already believe that $30 x 6 < $180 because 30 is smaller than 180 DUH, there's no difficulty in convincing them that while they can't afford $180, they can certainly afford $30 six times- heck, that's easy-peasy I have thirty dollars right now (or, at least I will when my next paycheck hits my account.)  There's a reason why the length of the average car contract was four years in the 2000s, five years in the 2010s and is now six years- because the only way you can con people into overbuying for a car they can't afford is to make those monthly payments smaller.

But in the very first sentence, I pointed out that these Buy Now, Pay Later companies offer INTEREST-FREE payment plans, so what's the big deal?  Well, the Big Deal comes in examining how these companies make their money.  They do it by charging merchants high user fees.  And merchants pay these fees because the average user of Buy Now, Pay Later services ends up spending 20 percent more than the person using a credit card or cash.  In other words, the high fees are worth it to the merchant.  And how can the merchants make that money back?  The way they always do-  by raising prices.

See where this is going?  Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm etc. are all contributing to inflation, and not just on impulse items like clothes, shoes, food delivery and jewelry.  They are being used to buy groceries now.  And using them is becoming alarmingly normalized; check out a recent post where a family uses one to pay a TOLL.  

So expect prices to keep going up as stores adjust to customers who Buy Now, Pay Later using one of these fee-sucking, economy-draining services.  Even if you don't use them yourself, * you're going to be paying more because the store has to keep paying for the option.  And ultimately, you're going to be living in a country where everyone is in debt paying off the clutter sitting in their living rooms.

*and you don't use them yourself, right?  You're way too smart for that.  Nobody really wants to party like it's 1929. 

Nothing Progressive About Any of This

 

Hey look, a male in an American TV commercial is being a clueless, destructive idiot while his long-suffering partner looks on with a mixture of encouragement and resignation.   Like pretty much every American TV commercial for the past thirty years.  

In this one, the Predictably Dumb Husband who somehow has a job that pays for this suburban palace and that overpriced truck is just going to keep trying to back into the driveway instead of just going in forward for some reason, and because he's equipped with male genitalia he's going to keep failing until his partner puts an end to it and- sends in a slightly more competent man to do the job.  I'm not sure why backing a truck into a driveway is a specifically male job, but I'm also not sure why American TV commercials insist on "playfully" taking down guys in every ad, but I don't work for an advertising firm so what would I know.  

Plus, I'm just an American guy so what would I know about anything that doesn't involve beer, gambling apps and breaking things anyway.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do some major damage somewhere while a woman looks on in quiet desperation.