Burrito Now, Pay Later

Ethical concerns about BNPL for food

• Many commenters see “financing your lunch” as clear societal decay: if you can’t afford a burrito now, layering fees and interest on top is inherently harmful.
• Critics frame BNPL as payday loans in nicer UX: targeting people with low income, low education, and weak credit, then extracting late fees and retroactive high APR once they slip.
• Several describe cascading fee scenarios (late fees, overdraft, reordered transactions) where missing a small installment can trigger a debt spiral. Others think some examples in the thread are exaggerated but still usurious enough.

Comparison to credit cards, layaway, and PNBL

• Some argue BNPL is just credit cards rearranged: short-term, often “interest-free” only if you never miss; real economics depend on merchant fees and penalties.
• Others note differences: underwriting each transaction, specific schedules, and use by the “under‑banked” who can’t get cards.
• Historical analogues (layaway) and “PNBL” (pay-now-buy-later, prepaid memberships, gift cards, tithing to savings) are discussed as more austere or protective alternatives.
• A recurring point: credit cards are widely used for convenience and rewards, often paid in full; BNPL feels more clearly about enabling purchases people otherwise couldn’t make.

Securitization and systemic risk

• The article’s framing of burrito-backed securities as benign “market completion” is widely mocked.
• Multiple commenters see direct echoes of subprime mortgages: adverse selection (subprime borrowers), securitization, optimistic default assumptions, potential ratings arbitrage, and non‑bank investors as eventual bagholders.
• Some think BNPL volumes won’t reach 2008-scale systemic risk; others worry it’s one more layer in an already over‑leveraged, financialized system.

Financialization, markets, and morality

• Strong pushback on the idea that “if there’s demand and it can be priced, it’s good.”
• Many argue finance increasingly serves to let those with capital extract more from those with less, especially via consumer credit.
• The article’s celebration of “complete markets” and willingness to securitize even sports betting and food purchases is called sociopathic by several.
• Side debate: whether morality is objective or subjective, and whether excluding moral judgments for “objective economics” analysis is itself misleading.

Consumer behavior, poverty, and responsibility

• One camp emphasizes personal responsibility: financing burritos is irrational; people should build savings and avoid consumer debt.
• Another stresses how poverty, stress, and low financial literacy impair decision‑making; BNPL exploits that via frictionless UX, timing mismatches between paychecks and necessities, and social norms around convenience food.
• Some see BNPL as marginally useful for cash‑flow smoothing or for the unbanked, but even then as a symptom of deeper wage, housing, and safety‑net failures.

Regulation and transparency

• Proposals include: capping fees, forcing explicit disclosure of transaction and financing costs, banning or limiting some forms of consumer debt, or at least making these loans easily dischargeable in bankruptcy.
• Others argue the real fix is stronger social safety nets (housing, food, healthcare) so “burrito credit” never becomes necessary.