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Post by Hobson on Dec 23, 2023 16:36:21 GMT -5
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Dec 23, 2023 17:53:10 GMT -5
I grew up near Kokomo, Indiana. Before that formal credit score system there was another, perhaps less formal, rating around Kokomo that my Dad utilized expertly. That system was the trust built-up by borrowing and paying back.
We were probably never poor but definitely never flush. Dad was a great, hardworking guy, a tool and die maker but not for the local GM or Chrysler plants. He worked for a lower tier company.
With four kids to raise and, well, life, there were frequent gaps between income and need. He could plug those gaps by walking into any of the local finance companies, and there were many of them and telling the manager what he needed. He would walk out with it.
Household Finance Company had hundreds of locations and the door on each said it was managed by "Friendly Bob Adams."
There must have been exceptions, but these finance companies were not strong arm loan sharks, but rather small family businesses. And they helped our family through.
This was back before almost every business offered its own branded Visa or MasterCard. Now those companies are basically all gone with payday loans being a lower dreg.
Dad didn't have a FICO score but he had a very high "Hey Art! Good to see you. What do need?" score.
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Post by drlj on Dec 23, 2023 18:20:04 GMT -5
I grew up near Kokomo, Indiana. Before that formal credit score system there was another, perhaps less formal, rating around Kokomo that my Dad utilized expertly. That system was the trust built-up by borrowing and paying back. We were probably never poor but definitely never flush. Dad was a great, hardworking guy, a tool and die maker but not for the local GM or Chrysler plants. He worked for a lower tier company. With four kids to raise and, well, life, there were frequent gaps between income and need. He could plug those gaps by walking into any of the local finance companies, and there were many of them and telling the manager what he needed. He would walk out with it. Household Finance Company had hundreds of locations and the door on each said it was managed by "Friendly Bob Adams." There must have been exceptions, but these finance companies were not strong arm loan sharks, but rather small family businesses. And they helped our family through. This was back before almost every business offered its own branded Visa or MasterCard. Now those companies are basically all gone with payday loans being a lower dreg. Dad didn't have a FICO score but he had a very high "Hey Art! Good to see you. What do need?" score. It was Associates where I lived. They knew you by first name and I have no idea who managed it or what the interest rate was but they were always busy. Poor-ish people who pretended to be middle class were their best customers. |
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Dec 23, 2023 18:54:20 GMT -5
I remember seeing adds for Household finance. My Mom, who pretty much raised me, never used anything like that. We just did without. I never wanted for food or shelter, but we were by no means well off. In high school I was a bag boy at a local S Cal grocery chain. The money I made kept me in surf wax.
Mike
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Post by Cornflake on Dec 23, 2023 18:57:46 GMT -5
Rob, that's cool. Reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life.
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Post by t-bob on Dec 23, 2023 19:36:34 GMT -5
Obviously it's very different era .....
Some of local banks ----- Redwood Credit Union low interest 6% or - AA rating in BBB - fantastic
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Post by howard lee on Dec 23, 2023 20:03:51 GMT -5
Rob, that's cool. Reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life.
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Post by millring on Dec 24, 2023 6:25:26 GMT -5
That was a nice slice of Americana. But to hear the story as now told by our institutions -- academia, the press, entertainment -- if you were the wrong race or a woman you wouldn't have had the same access to that credit. Hence (along with technological advancement), the impersonal world of credit scores we have today.
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Post by Cornflake on Dec 24, 2023 10:10:34 GMT -5
In my family, relatives were the credit union. People who found themselves hard up would ask relatives for help. Among the few relatives I still have who are older than I am, there are some long-standing grudges towards people who came around with their hands out too often.
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Post by Russell Letson on Dec 24, 2023 13:05:15 GMT -5
But to hear the story as now told by our institutions -- academia, the press, entertainment -- if you were the wrong race or a woman you wouldn't have had the same access to that credit. So is that story untrue? Was there never a time when a single woman could not get a loan unless she had a co-signer? That redlining never took place? That there never has been an interest-rate differential across gender or ethnic lines? And the historians, journalists, and researchers of "our institutions" have settled on a false narrative because--? And was the Equal Credt Opportunity Act of 1974 an empty gesture, a solution to a non-existent problem? BTW, there's an interesting anecdote about how the gender/marital-status language got into that bill (found via the Wikipedia entry on the ECOA). When the Banking committee marked up the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, [Lindy] Boggs added a provision barring discrimination over sex or marital status -- without telling her colleagues first, inserting the language on her own and photocopying new versions of the bill.
"Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I'm sure it was just an oversight that we didn't have 'sex' or 'marital status' included," Boggs told her colleagues, according to the House historian's office. "I've taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee's approval." abcnews.go.com/Politics/congresswoman-ambassador-lindy-boggs-dies-97/story?id=19792180On credit and blue-collar folk in the 1950s-60s: I'm not sure exactly where the domestic division of labor was when I was growing up, but my mother did have a department-store credit account (the cardboard card had an embossed metal strip with account information), though I don't know whether it was oficially in Dad's name. My parents did everything together, so I suspect their bank account was a joint one--Ma made out the bills and presumably signed the checks. They certainly didn't operate on the "table money" model. What I recall of their relationship to credit was via individual businesses--say, appliance and department stores--and probably bank loans for cars. Dad used to say that without "time payments," they wouldn't have had much of what they did. But I suspect every credit-dependent purchase was carefully examined. Depression kids and all that. One of my most vivid memories (which I've mentioned here before) was my sendoff to grad school in 1966, when I was to be well and truly on my own. Ma assembled a set of kitchenware, Dad populated a good toolbox with extras from his workbench, and they both gave me the payment book for the used '63 Dodge 440 they'd bought for me senior year. My goyische bar mitzvah: " Today you are a man." (Of course, I was the recipient of a fellowship and an assistanceship and would be taking in $400/month* for two years, so I could pay my own way.) Earlier that year, I had received, unsolicited, a credit card for Fina gas stations, which was pretty handy for a day-hop student who would now be driving cross-country. On edit: Just did an inflation calculation--my 1966 $400/month was the equivalent of $3755.98 in 2023 over the 10-month school year. So I was pretty flush for those first two years. Then the fellowship finished and my income was halved--but still what I could live on in 1969. |
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Post by billhammond on Dec 24, 2023 13:18:32 GMT -5
Russ was stylin'!  |
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Post by Russell Letson on Dec 24, 2023 13:50:49 GMT -5
Mine was a black two-door slant-six stick-shift with an elliptical steering wheel. Really good car, and before I left for Illinois, Dad fitted it with lap belts, just in case. I have to say, though, that the bench front seat was not designed for 17-hour drives, and my ass was sore as hell by the time I got to Carbondale.
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Post by drlj on Dec 24, 2023 14:42:49 GMT -5
But to hear the story as now told by our institutions -- academia, the press, entertainment -- if you were the wrong race or a woman you wouldn't have had the same access to that credit. So is that story untrue? Was there never a time when a single woman could not get a loan unless she had a co-signer? That redlining never took place? That there never has been an interest-rate differential across gender or ethnic lines? And the historians, journalists, and researchers of "our institutions" have settled on a false narrative because--? And was the Equal Credt Opportunity Act of 1974 an empty gesture, a solution to a non-existent problem? When married the first time, my wife worked for a large retailer. She applied for a credit card with them and a form arrived at my place of work a few days later. My boss called me in and I had to ok the fact that she wanted a credit card with her employer! How absurd was that? I know several women who were turned down for credit when men who made the same salary or less were not. One woman was turned down on a car loan because she was not married. She had been working for several years. Barb bought a car when we were first married, negotiated the deal, paid the money from her salary, and the car dealer registered the car in my name. I went there and argued with them about it and said it needed to be registered in her name. They would not budge. Finally, we re-registered in both of our names, but what an insult to someone who did not need my salary or ok to buy a car. |
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Post by Cornflake on Dec 24, 2023 14:55:14 GMT -5
LJ, I wonder if there may have been some legal reasons for wanting the husband's name on things. If the buyer quits making payments, the seller can only go after the buyer's assets. In olden days women might not have much.
But this question gets into issues of property, which was my lowest grade in law school. David may have a better idea.
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Post by epaul on Dec 24, 2023 15:17:34 GMT -5
On edit: Just did an inflation calculation--my 1966 $400/month was the equivalent of $3755.98 in 2023 over the 10-month school year. Interesting. |
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Post by drlj on Dec 24, 2023 15:17:58 GMT -5
LJ, I wonder if there may have been some legal reasons for wanting the husband's name on things. If the buyer quits making payments, the seller can only go after the buyer's assets. In olden days women might not have much. But this question gets into issues of property, which was my lowest grade in law school. David may have a better idea. Barb was working as an administrator and making more money than I was when she bought that car. The only excuse the car dealership could offer was, that’s how we do it. I thought she should cancel the purchase but she wanted the car. And they put it in my name, not our joint names. We made that change at the BMV when the title arrived. In the case with my first wife, it was 1972 but, again, this was the company for which she worked and had worked for a year before I started my teaching job in the fall of ‘72. This happened in possibly the spring of the next year but it was a long time ago so I don’t recall. And they didn’t put me on the card. They just asked for my ok for her to get one. They were also, I imagine, checking my employment so maybe there was some method to their madness. Although, my name was never on the account nor did I have a card. I remember even my boss was amazed by it. I don’t recall if I ever told my wife or not. |
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Post by Russell Letson on Dec 24, 2023 16:37:45 GMT -5
wonder if there may have been some legal reasons for wanting the husband's name on things. If the buyer quits making payments, the seller can only go after the buyer's assets. In olden days women might not have much. Those "olden days" were pretty much gone, legally, by the latter part of the 20th century--New York State passed a Women's Property Law in 1848, beginning the end of the English common law notion of coverture. (Interesting that these early laws gave financial independence to married women.) As far as loan default, I would think that the contract language would make it clear that the car itself is the collateral. If the paperwork says that they're co-owners, then he's on the hook; if it's only her, I doubt that a 1970s legal environment would make him responsible for her debt. (Assuming that the car can't be repossessed.) From what I've read of the history of women's-property laws, I'd be surprised to see any state laws making a husband responsible for debts incurred by his wife on her own. I would guess that husband-co-signer requirements were entirely devised by private entities and were probably illegal. Satisfaction upon lawsuit. Sidelight: A bit of anecdotage about gender-political-legal culture c. 1970. When we were new-married and doing the paperwork for our first house and associated domestic arrangements, Cezarija asked the banker with whom we were working whether she could retain her own family name on our documents rather than taking mine. "Why," he asked, "would anyone want to do that?" To be fair, Illinois law at that time was probably governed by a 1945 court case that enshrined the "long-established custom, policy and rule . . . whereby a woman's name is changed by marriage and her husband's surname becomes as a matter of law her surname."* Or maybe he was just being a reactionary jerk. In any case, she remained Caesarea** Letson until we moved to Minnesota seven years later, where she took her family name back without any problem. (It's the one on her passport, so it must be kosher.) Her sister, on the other hand, took her husband's family name, so C. is the last living Abartis in America. * See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)** The Romanized version of her Lithuanian given name, perhaps devised by the nuns in her Pittsburgh elementary school to avoid the difficulty of the original. She eventually took back the Lithuanian spelling, though University records still retain the Romanized version. |
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Dec 24, 2023 20:26:48 GMT -5
wonder if there may have been some legal reasons for wanting the husband's name on things. If the buyer quits making payments, the seller can only go after the buyer's assets. In olden days women might not have much. Those "olden days" were pretty much gone, legally, by the latter part of the 20th century--New York State passed a Women's Property Law in 1848, beginning the end of the English common law notion of coverture. (Interesting that these early laws gave financial independence to married women.) As far as loan default, I would think that the contract language would make it clear that the car itself is the collateral. If the paperwork says that they're co-owners, then he's on the hook; if it's only her, I doubt that a 1970s legal environment would make him responsible for her debt. (Assuming that the car can't be repossessed.) From what I've read of the history of women's-property laws, I'd be surprised to see any state laws making a husband responsible for debts incurred by his wife on her own. I would guess that husband-co-signer requirements were entirely devised by private entities and were probably illegal. Satisfaction upon lawsuit. Sidelight: A bit of anecdotage about gender-political-legal culture c. 1970. When we were new-married and doing the paperwork for our first house and associated domestic arrangements, Cezarija asked the banker with whom we were working whether she could retain her own family name on our documents rather than taking mine. "Why," he asked, "would anyone want to do that?" To be fair, Illinois law at that time was probably governed by a 1945 court case that enshrined the "long-established custom, policy and rule . . . whereby a woman's name is changed by marriage and her husband's surname becomes as a matter of law her surname."* Or maybe he was just being a reactionary jerk. In any case, she remained Caesarea** Letson until we moved to Minnesota seven years later, where she took her family name back without any problem. (It's the one on her passport, so it must be kosher.) Her sister, on the other hand, took her husband's family name, so C. is the last living Abartis in America. * See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)** The Romanized version of her Lithuanian given name, perhaps devised by the nuns in her Pittsburgh elementary school to avoid the difficulty of the original. She eventually took back the Lithuanian spelling, though University records still retain the Romanized version. In fairly recent times I used to see public notices in the newspaper declaring that, as of such and such date, John Edward Doe will not be responsible for any debts other those incurred by himself. This seemed to be an effort to forestall a bitter soon-to-be Ex (who may be discovering that fact via the notice) from exercising anger and vindictiveness. Those notices may still be there. I don't look. There's so little quality content in our newspaper that I don't go wandering off into legal notices. |
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Post by coachdoc on Dec 25, 2023 0:25:56 GMT -5
My wife is Maureen OReilly and never considered changing to Rogers if only for the amount of paperwork that would involve.
We also had our partnership formalized by my brother in law the lawyer at a Portland bar called 3 Dollar Dewies’ for one dollar lookie, 2 dollar touchy, and 3 Dollar Dewie.
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Post by coachdoc on Dec 25, 2023 0:29:03 GMT -5
She did promise to change to my name when she was sure we were going to remain married. 50 years and she is still O’Reilly.
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