Payment Ratchet

Have to love the use of technology to make people stick to a payment schedule on their car. I hope they have an emergency override option that will let the hapless borrower make that absolutely need to make trip before the car shuts down on them.

Wonder what such technology would mean to those who are late on mortgage payments - maybe shut them out of the house one room, one floor at a time. The basement goes out of bounds first, followed by the bedrooms and finally the main entrance. That should crank up the pressure to pay in slow, torturous degrees.

The premise of this whole thing is that somehow these "sub prime people" are just too lazy and/or unwilling to pay but do have a bunch of money. If prodded long and hard enough, they would just overcome their inertia and begin to pay. There is also the subliminal sense that these individuals can and must be manipulated like automatons, that poverty makes them less human.

It might make more sense to strap such devices on to those predatory lenders and physically immobilize them as they try to sign loan documents knowing fully well that it will end in repossession and a lot of suffering for the debtor .