Just as an FYI: if you have stock in a regular brokerage account, you can take out a margin loan in cash immediately. It depends on the broker, but IME it's fairly common (e.g. Fidelity does it).

Margin has a bad name as a "high risk" activity, but that's mostly when you have a concentrated position and are taking out a margin loan to double down on that concentrated position. Using margin as a bridge cash loan for a few days is a fairly low-risk proposition.

Consumer credit cards aren't subprime lending; you're given an entire month of float before interest, and usually have sub-20% APRs. This is entirely different from a payday loan. Even a personal finance line of credit is much lower interest.

If you have the collateral you don't need a subprime loan.

>Consumers know what’s best for them.

Yeah that didn't work out the last time

> Consumers know what’s best for them.

The rest of the world would prefer you not to crash the world economy like it happened in 2008, for the sake of a clueless aphorism.

Except in 2008 many people did not understand what their actual monthly bill would be with an ARM in a worst case scenario, and banks were more than happy to handwave away any concerns.