Moral Responsibilities in Handling Your Finances

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Using debt to finance a lifestyle seems to be nearly an automatic assumption. Years ago when someone bought a car he saved up the money and paid cash for it. Now it is assumed that one will take out a loan to make a car purchase. Even a used car. How many used car dealers operate on the motto of "Got a job? Get a car. Nobody walks"? But at what cost? Rent to own operates on the same premise. How moral is it for someone to pay many times the value of an item over the life of a loan?

[gtwise]

Originally Posted by kav122

I feel that handling your finances in a way in which you pay your debtors and set aside money for giving is everyone's moral responsibility.

I am not that big on the giving part any more. When the government takes away 30%+ of your earning to give it to the needy and sponsor medical researches I feel a lot less compelled to give more money for any cause. I do volunteer in my local community but I will refuse to donate money to any kind of agency that has 20%+ overhead.

It's like when laws control everything that is unethical where is virtue? There is none left. It's not that you don't do a thing because it's unethical, you simply don't do it because it would put you in jail.

Is it right for an employer (especially in a situation where the filer is currently employed, not a job-seeker) to pull your credit and penalize you for your financial troubles?

I would say, absolutely! Note that no one is entitled to a job. It's a priviledge to work at a place, not a birthright. If the company discloses such information I would say it's free game. The problem companies run into is the correlation between credit rating and racial origin. People love to pull the race card when they are turned down for a job when in fact it was because of their shoddy credit. I'm not too big on affirmative action either, I think it's BS and companies who partake in it are severly hurting themselves ant their investors in the long run. There is a huge difference between correlation and causality. A person can have bad credit and be African American. But a person rarely if ever has bad credit because they are African American. Just as I opened this paragraph, I'd like to re-iterate. Working is not a birthright! It's a priviledge!

Do employers actually do this, or does this only happen when someone is seeking a job?

Lockheed Martin and other places that require you to have security clearence definetely keep an eye on your financial stability. It is only prudent to do that. If you become financially unstable you might be more prone to bribery.

Is it right for a possible employer to pull the credit on a job-seeker?

Absolutely! See my answers above.

Do you (or someone you know) feel a social stigma attached to "being a person who has filed bankrupcy." Or is it the complete opposite? Do they brag about "beating the system?"

There can be a difference between bankruptcy and bankruptcy. It could be due to medical reasons or great misfortunes or it could be due to being ignorant and pissing money away like it's going out of style only to get stuck with a huge bill in the end.

I personally depise people who had bankruptcies. Sure there can be a legitimate reason behind it, but more often than not it's due to bad planning. I, as a credit card holder and bank client am paying for their bankruptcies with higher interest rates and transaction fees. I am willing to pay that price as the benefits outweigh the cost. That doesn't mean I'm not disappointed about it though.

I feel the same way about the subprime lending fiasco that is going on right now. I, as an investor, am financing other people's foreclosures while they reaped the benefits before.

Same goes for social security. I am pissed that I know I will never get money out of social security, and the money I'm putting into this huge pyramid scheme has paid out to people who esentially freeloaded on the system. But there is not a darn think I can do about it, so I won't really worry about it too much, just suck it up and live with it.

But back to the original topic. I think companies can and should have the right to run people's credit prior and during eployment and decide on people's hireability based on that.

[gtwise]

Originally Posted by Milehimama

Yes, one should pay their creditors, but that assumes their creditors operate morally as well.

Define "operate morally". Can the sub-prime lenders be blamed for the housing situation we-re in now? Is it because they were pushing people into buying houses they couldn't swing? Is it because people were shoved into teaser ARM contracts that jumped sky high after 3-4-5 yeras? Were these people forced into buying? Were these people supposed to have someone spoonfeed the contract to them? This is my beef with our current society. People expect the government to take care of them, look after them, *gasp* even think for them. But on the other hand people are all pissy about how the government is getting into every aspect of our lives and how taxes are going up. You can't have your cake and eat it too!

If there were only moral creditors we'd have no payday cash advance places or rent-a-centers.

If someone gets screwed on one of these deals that's their fault and they can blame noone but themselves. If they were dumb enough to get into the trouble it's their responsibility to get out of it. It's called natural selection. I guess Darwinism is not that big amongst all the hypocrates of today's world....... At least I call it like I see it.