Agreed. Seriously, poor people should be dumpster diving or cruising garage sales for furniture, not buying new. This is just people being stupid with what little money they have, and they get little or no sympathy from me. This is true even though, in general, I support a much stronger safety net and tighter regulation on predatory financial practices like payday loans. The vital difference is between necessity and luxury, and by ignoring that distinction this article is a lovely straw-man argument for mercenary conservatives to latch on to.
Almost all loans that don't feed into some sort of income producing activity are bad loans.
I would really like to know what happened to the idea of saving. I'm sure I'm going to sound like some old codger (OK, I'm almost 50, I am) but my first 10+ years out of university I had secondhand furniture and the cheapest bookcases I could find, and I was a network manager.
My parents taught me not to buy things I couldn't afford to pay in full immediately, because loans cost you. With the exception of my house, I have never taken out a loan. I pay my CC in full every month. Why do poor people feel they must have new, quality furnishings? I can see the rare splurge on something nice, but it seems everyone has to have all sorts of nice stuff regardless of whether they can afford it or not. Craigslist makes it ridiculously easy to find affordable furniture.
I think that headline is misleading. In the article, they say it was $1500 for a sofa and loveseat, which isn't bad if the material and construction is high quality (who knows, Ashley Furniture is probably crap next to actual craftsmanship).
