China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for Everything

Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by headcanon on Monday November 28, 2016 @05:11PM (#13058865)

Credit score for an apartment seems reasonable, though - you're paying a non-trivial amount of money per month, and apartments want to minimize evictions - they just want to know if you can pay. I've been in a situation where my credit score was bad, but I provided an offer letter for my new job (which indicated that my future situation won't be like my past) and it was fine.

Where I can see it failing is for people who live "outside" the system - I have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins - he can't find an above-the-board place to live because of his lack of credit score. But with that said, he does have a high risk of not being able to make rent on time, so its difficult to say what the policy should be.

As for finding a job, I don't know of any instance where a poor credit score would prevent you from getting a job, other than getting a security clearance, but that also seems reasonable since the government wants to know if you have any blackmail-able "money troubles" that an enemy actor can take advantage of.

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Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by weerd on Monday November 28, 2016 @05:26PM (#13058965)

The problem I've had is that there is effectively no difference between bad credit and no credit. It is entirely possible to be a financially responsible person (who exists in the "system" with a bank account) and still be denied housing. This forces people to get credit cards.

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Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by avn2109 on Monday November 28, 2016 @05:35PM (#13059030)

>> "This forces people to get credit cards."

That's the point. They designed the system of incentives and constraints to make you their customer.

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Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by gph on Monday November 28, 2016 @05:21PM (#13058933)

Yea, no one takes it too seriously for employment (which makes me wonder why they even do it most the time). I doubt I would have lost out on any jobs if I had bad credit, it probably wasn't really necessary for me to build up my credit (other than being good for getting car/home loans now).

But your second point is largely what I was getting at. People who don't want that to be a part of their life are starting to run into barriers to leading a normal life. At this point credit scores are used rather casually and don't have that high of consequences. But the trend is in the wrong direction, and I'm firmly against it continuing in the same way as the Chinese are bringing it.

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Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by lettergram on Monday November 28, 2016 @06:28PM (#13059331)

If you had bad credit and a large amount of debt no bank or federal positions that deal with finances or money would be open for you.

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Re:China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for ... by morgante on Monday November 28, 2016 @10:05PM (#13060435)

> I have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins

I don't need a credit score to tell me I probably don't want this person as a tenant. They're a huge eviction risk (no system = no fallback for short-term cashflow issues), not to mention that I don't want to be dealing with hundreds of dollars in cash rent.

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