Interesting Links for 27-07-2013

[andrewducker]

• The same actress playing different teenage girls for over twenty years.
  (tags: tv age )
• Gorgeous art of the same house in many different kinds of weather
  (tags: art weather )
• What it's like to work with a bear who's a _teensy_ bit of a diva.
  (tags: animals tv gameofthrones )
• The Archbishop of Canterbury is innumerate
  (tags: religion money credit )

Comments

[rhythmaning]

That house: http://www.manuelcosentino.com/

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[andrewducker]

I'm amused that the images are supposed to be "only be accessed through the pages of an artist book and chooses to sacrifice dissemination (large-scale web 2.0 approach) to reclaim a physical connection with the audience" - but there's no book for sale, and the pictures are all over the web!

[drdoug]

Far be it for me to defend a cleric's pontificating, but I think the Archbishop of Canterbury would respond to the point that Wonga needs to charge an eye-wateringly high APR in order to cover the eye-wateringly high cost of defaulting loans with the argument that a key point of his whole idea here is for there to be a much lower rate of default. Loan defaults tend to have socially very bad outcomes. Reducing the rate of default on loans seems like a very good plan

[drdoug]

And another thing: I'm slightly surprised at the focus of payday lending hatred on Wonga. They seem to me if anything one of the more trustworthy and ethical payday lenders - in part because they have such a high profile. Admittedly that's a 'one of the better of a very bad bunch' thing.

It's also a very complex issue to resolve - the simple regulatory solution (legal maximum APRs) will mean high-risk customers simply can't get loans, and also raises the scary prospect of illegal loan sharks (who will have added incentive to terrify their customers). Which might on average seem better than the current regime, but I think much better to put our efforts in to reducing people's risk of defaulting. Which includes boosting credit unions.

[naath]

Or we could put our efforts into reducing people's need to borrow money they can't afford to repay in order to have the basic necessities of life.

[andrewducker]

I believe that Wonga's default rate is considered very low, for the kind of market that they service. There's a good article here about their model:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23078746

And yes - I think that it costs them about £10 to set up each loan in overheads, and they need to make that back too.