Why finance shouldn't be open to your average Schmoe

Generally "the people"ⁱ clamor for - nay, outright expect! - access to anything pertaining to finance. So, should everyone have a bank account ? Yes, they say. Even people unable to add in their head ? Why should somebody unable to do basic arithmetic have a bank account ? What for ?

The underlying assumption, of course, is "fairness", understood in the following broken terms : every live bipedal with wide nails and without feathers is equal, identical and equivalent to every other. So if one were to have a bank account and another were to not have a bank account, this is "unfair" in the sense that it breaches the expectation of bipedal equalidentiquivalence.

Here's the problem :

So this idiot - who is married! woe unto the poor woman and may God never curse any children with the misfortune of knowing him - wants to borrow 35`000 (that's thirty-five thousand) dollars to buy a new couch, new curtains and whatever else. That he can't afford. On credit. This so far would be common, pretty much all the ungulates inhabiting the United States are guilty of this sin. But he wants to do it all in BTC.

Let us do the most basic, most naive, most primitive, absolute minimal sort of financial analysis. Bitcoin average price six months ago was 10. Bitcoin average price today is 130. Should the idiot have borrowed his 35k six months ago and be due to repay today, he would consequently owe no less than 455k on principal alone. What of "my ability to comfortably repay this loan regardless of what happens"ⁱⁱ ? Does he make 10*455/6*12 = 9.1 million a year (after tax) ? I dare say no, he doesn't.

He would like to stress that he can get this loan from his bank. Somehow I doubt this, with the credit freeze-up happening all over the world. Why would banks lend to consumers when they can just as well lend to the government, point to weak consumer figures, get government to buy more of their toxic balance sheet, use the capital thus cleared to lend to the government and point to weak consumer figures ?

You can hardly get a loan for actual legitimate business purposes in the US these days, let alone braindamaged "home improvement" projects stemming from the circumstance that the woman is stuck at home, too ugly and socially awkwardⁱⁱⁱ to get a lover and too braindamaged by "women's studies" to actually understand how deeply she sucks and start putting her time and energy into fixing it. So she wants new carpets and upholstery, which will come in handy when nobody ever visits. Not to mention will also give the appearance that she's doing something and that's why there's no food ever cooked in the kitchen that cost to equip more than an entire African village ever spends on food during a century.

So why is he getting a BTC loan if his bank would give him dollars ? Why! "the potential interest-rate savings on BTCjam (and here:) make it worth our while to try here first". Get a load of that. The interest-rate savings. It costs at least 5% to insure dollar exposure against BTC appreciation. Per month. Over six months the FX risks he's undertaking are more than the usury rates in most states, yet there's "savings". Why ? Because he can't do math.

Why should this person be allowed a bank account ? (And for that matter, until and unless he learns to spell "principal", why should this person be allowed posting priviledges in "Loans" ?)

1. "The People" being any one person aware of the circumstance that the sum value of their property, knowledge and experience does not justify the administrative costs of obtaining an actual identity (which have always been small and always dropping as technology improves) nevertheless aiming to inject themselves into conversation between actual people with actual assets, actual knowledge and actual experience as if one of them. [↩]
2. Remember this phrase ? You've heard it before, haven't you. Kludge, of course, invented it. Woe onto that woman too, as she soon enough found out. [↩]
3. To get a better appreciation of the general worthlessness of the average US female these days, consider this call of desperation :

   This week is about fostering relationships in the greek community, and that's not fucking possible if you're going to stand around and talk to each other and not our matchup. Newsflash you stupid cocks: FRATS DON'T LIKE BORING SORORITIES. Oh wait, DOUBLE FUCKING NEWSFLASH: SIGMA NU IS NOT GOING TO WANT TO HANG OUT WITH US IF WE FUCKING SUCK, which by the way in case you're an idiot and need it spelled out for you, WE FUCKING SUCK SO FAR.
   [...]
   If you are one of the people that have told me "Oh nooo boo hoo I can't talk to boys I'm too sober", then I pity you because I don't know how you got this far in life, and with that in mind don't fucking show up unless you're going to stop being a goddamn cock block for our chapter.

   So yeah, good news : if you've married a US chick you're probably safe. She's never going to cheat on you, unless some barn animals get horny while she's passed out drunk. Actual people would never bother with her for a list of reasons so long it's not worth compiling.
   [↩]