[mycocola]

Just as a thought experiment: Governments could mandate banks to prevent their customers from spending beyond what'll go to rent/mortgage. It'd certainly prevent overdue or missed payments. Would that be a net positive, or would that prevent or slow people from learning fiscal responsibility and the benefits that go along with that?

[dewey]

Isn’t that exactly what over draft limits and credit ratings are already doing?

[oarsinsync]

Overdraft limits restrict how much into the negative your bank account can go. Credit ratings are designed to help paint a story about risk, for lenders to consider when deciding how much money you can be loaned, and at what interest rate.

Both of those things existed in the early 2000s, but if the risk of a loan can (appear to) be shifted onto someone else, banks can and will issue bigger and riskier loans to people, and will reward the individual people selling the loans personally.

[cloverich]

I don't think it's a compelling example, because fiscal responsibility requires very little education. Detecting malware by comparison requires literal experts. I think a better comparison might be requiring regulation around investment vehicles to eg root out ponzi schemes. Whatever our success there is definite buy in for that.