Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes Thread November 2015 - Less Wrong
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FFS the bank makes a profit in every example provided. I don't want to say that you obviously didn't read the post, but I honestly can't see any way you would come to post this comment otherwise.
Loans are a service. Loans with gentle defaults are a more desirable service. Those seeking loans would often purchase such services preferentially and at a profitable premium to the bank, if they were available or if asking for them were socially acceptable. Laws should be passed to encourage banks make such offers.
I don't see why this would be so.
Consider the usual death spiral: the "gentle default" (GD) loans are more expensive than "normal" loans. This activates the self-selection bias -- people with good credit will take "normal" loans and people which expect that their probability of default is high will take the GD loans. This makes the population of GD borrowers skewed towards high default rates. To compensate for this, the bank raises the rates on GD loans. This, in turn, reinforces the self-selection and the GD borrowers population becomes even more skewed towards high default. Rinse & repeat, crash & burn.
Besides, if you insist that this service would be profitable for the banks, why are they not offering it? The social conventions which prevent individuals from asking for these terms do not apply to banks -- if this idea were good, they would take the initiative and create such a product.