WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Buy Now, Pay Later: Too Risky?

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss the drawbacks of the culture of financing too many purchases. 

Welcome back to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, a witty radio show where we discuss current events and culture through the lens of an article. I am Sophia Mante, and I'm here with my co-host, Emma Verini. Today we will be discussing an article published by the Wall Street Journal titled America's Buy Now Pay Later Economy, and published by Alicia Finley. So what were your thoughts about this? I know we were discussing it a little earlier, and you said you had some opinions and that you've actually watched a video or a discussion about this in detail pretty recently. So this looks like it's becoming sort of a very popular topic of discussion. And you sort of can't avoid it either. If you go on these websites where you can do some online shopping and some purchasing, you see the option to sort of finance your purchase, interest, re-installments, stuff like that.

So what are your thoughts? We're sort of going to get into what some of those options are and how people are using them. Well, I'm not the biggest fan of all the companies involved in the buy now, pay later economy, which basically is how there's installment payments where if you purchase something, you don't pay for it all at one point. So now, and apparently about half of customers use this service, and so retailers take advantage of it. So it's less expensive than a payday loan, but they enable borrowers to overextend themselves. The problem is, though, if you're just buying all these things without paying for it, it's probably not going to end well. And I actually remember first hearing about this from, of all things, Charlie Kirk, who talked to Tucker Carlson.

and he was asked something along lines of what's a huge problem that you don't hear a lot of people talking about. And I don't quite remember when this interview was done at least a couple months ago. And he talked about buy now, pay later and how he didn't like how a lot of his boomer audience doesn't seem to understand how the economy is not great right now. And he made a point, obviously there's some Gen Z people in his opinion. And I actually generally agree with him on this that are not just not making wise financial decisions and not saving. enough and spending too much. But when the inflation keeps rising and it becomes more expensive, it's like, how do you pay for something? You know, like, I'm not sure if you have the same opinion, Emma, but I definitely think there are people that are putting themselves in not great economic

situations, but they don't really have an easy way out of it. I completely agree with the point that people like Charlie Kirk, and I think I've seen Tucker Carlson, he's made this argument a lot where he basically says something along the lines of. The economy is really bad right now. And my kids literally cannot afford to buy a house. So it doesn't really matter what the gross domestic product is or anything like that. It doesn't matter what the numbers are. What matters is that I'm looking at this younger generation and they're not able to afford purchases.

And the generation before me, which would, you know, have been for him, the boomers, just doesn't seem to grasp that they weren't living in the same sort of golden age that that they were, that the boomers were. And I definitely think that's true. I mean, you talk to even like relatives and people who are older and they seem completely out of touch with reality and just like how long, for instance, how long the work week has become. It's now becoming more and more.

more and more common for people to work like over 40 hours a week or close to 60 hours a week, obviously depending in what industry you're in, but that's just becoming normal. People are now using the term, oh, my 9 to 6 or my 8 to 5 or my 8 to 6 p.m. job. That's becoming a lot more common. So I do think that people are having to work a lot harder to have the same sort of prosperity that they did back then. and that that's just that's just so obviously true and i've talked to for example just anecdotally i've talked to my mom about this she's sort of like in the middle of those two generations

so she's sort of seen what the boomers have gotten to experience the prosperity that they've experienced as opposed to the situation that we are all in now and yeah it's obviously different but where I sort of disagree with, you know, the sort of sympathy that we extend to the younger generation is that we say, well, they should still be able to spend money and finance all these ridiculous things that they want to finance. And I just don't think that's true. I mean, we've become less and less prosperous. People are making less money. Wages have been stagnant for a really long time. And yet, look at the culture. For example, something that I'm exposed to just by virtue of, I think the demographic I'm in is wedding culture. Wedding culture is like completely out of hand.

Everybody wants to be able to make the best Instagram post about how their wedding went and they need to all go. They all need to go on like a bachelorette trip and they need to buy plane. tickets to go, sometimes even overseas, but, you know, other times just like to a remote area within the country. And you need every single, like, wedding accessory that you see on Pinterest. And it's just totally been blown at a proportion, whereas older generations did not do all of that stuff. So I do think that our perception of what we deserve and what constitutes a special treat has just totally been blown out of proportion. Yeah, I do think that a lot of the problem is people are choosing to buy treats that apparently have been popularized on social media

mentions the article by splurging on personal indulges, which isn't good. I mean, with that said, I definitely have sympathy for a lot of people simply don't have the money and they're not trying to splurge. They just functionally don't have the money to pay for everything at once. But it is crazy the type of expenses you can do with these buy now pay later options such as i remember charlick says there's like pizza companies or you can buy pizza that you don't pay for right away like insane like little expenses and it just is insane to me because we talk all the time about how terrible the national debt is and how the government's always spending more money and it's getting worse with every new bill they pass more more money and like i don't know it's it's it's so

weird or existential, like, it just seems like something horrible has to happen eventually and it hasn't yet. We're continuously in, like, a horrific amount of debt. I mean, like, what happens? Is the country going to get mad at us and say we don't own anything? And I mean, you, you know, technically the other country would be in the right if we just are in debt. I mean, on some level, it seems immoral for me for the country to be in financial debt and to not have repaid things it ought to return. I'm obviously more understanding for your average person. Obviously there's idiots who are just stupid with money, but like for plenty of people that are forced into it because of other things, but it's like our very government makes horrific decisions seemingly with money or doesn't seem to

view it as important. And there's also a comparison made between how during the 2008 housing market crash. The government and fed bailed out over leveraged investors and borrowers. So what's going to happen now if the average citizen is getting more and more into intense debt, like, is something going to blow? Are we going to have another great depression? Or is this going to cause a weird case of more income inequality? In a sense, it already is practically with like the people who aren't in debt going to be way better off than the people that are. It's just a weird situation. And I don't know. I agree with you that a lot of it does seem to be cringy social pressure stuff. Like, oh my gosh, I have to spend all this money for the specific wedding that these like cringe posts on Instagram and Pinterest have.

Like, oh, my word, man. Sorry, that's just a personal gripe of mine. I just am like, you know, I'm not going to go in debt for. a marriage. That's not something that interests me. I don't know. I'm kind of like I want it to be as financially cheap as possible, which probably won't happen, but that's okay. You know, like, oh, you know, nice to do pretty things and all that, but I have a very strong aversion to things like that. It does seem like they weren't as expensive wedding ceremonies and varying things years and years ago, there's just a strange pull to this kind of almost debt-encouraging culture. Yeah, it is crazy. And I will grant that prices are just crazy for that kind of thing.

I mean, I don't know a lot about it, but I've heard enough to know that it's definitely crazy the amount that you have to reach back into your pocket to sort of be able to do these sorts of ceremonies and things like that. And you sort of, I want to go back to something you mentioned, which is what the article that we're discussing touches on, which is that, well, I'll actually just read it for you. This is the first graph. And it says serious credit card and auto loan delinquencies have climbed to 2008 through nine recession levels. The housing market shows cracks while the labor market is weakening. You wouldn't

know it from the buoyant stock market and consumer spending. Credit America's buy now pay later economy increasingly fueled by leverage. Customers or sorry, consumers, investors, businesses, and the government are taking on more debt, which we will all pay for later. So, I mean, you sort of touched on this, but I think this sort of gets at something like a little closer to human nature. And I'm not talking about all people. I'm talking about most people. And I think that is that most people, if given the opportunity, are going to stretch their finances as thin as possible. Like, this is just, this is just obvious.

People are going to spend as much as they can in any given moment. And I mean, this is why you have a lot of people who live paycheck to paycheck. And what's interesting is there are a lot of people who live paycheck to paycheck in America. And they all have wildly different salaries. You could have someone who's making $40,000 a year and they're living paycheck to paycheck, which is actually a lot more excusable. But then you'll have someone who's making $150,000 a year and they're also living paycheck to paycheck. So why is that? People just do what they can. They spend as much as they can. And I think that these services, one of the ones that's used as an example in the article, is Clarena. I think I'm pronouncing that right. But this is one of the

ones that we discussed earlier in this episode where you basically are able to make interest-free installments on a purchase. A lot of these purchases happen online. Like I said, when I do, online shopping for stuff that I don't need by the way like for example a new sweater I don't need a new sweater I want a new sweater and it'll pop up an option to finance and make four interest-free installments throughout the year of $39 as opposed to whatever the price of the sweater would be up front so I do think that it definitely sort of gives us a picture of how people spend their money and it's not good. Yeah. But again, like I said, I have empathy for the fact that there definitely are people using this that really cannot afford to pay for things up front. And by the way, you're listening to

flyover features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Yeah, so this sort of seems like the principle of if you give somebody an inch, they're just going to take it a mile. And I think it's the same thing. This this article sort of touches on like interest rates for instance. So people, if they want to take out a mortgage and buy a house, are going to have to lock down a certain interest rate to do so. And I mean, I'm not in the market for a house, so I'm not exactly sure where that is looking like it's out right now. But like, basically, if you lower the barrier for entry,

people are just going to stretch themselves more and more thinly, which is what we were talking about with the idea of finding, right? Like if you finance the sweater, if you have the option to finance this sweater, more and more people are going to be able to buy it and it's something that they can't afford. And I think that's why this article touches a lot in the 2008 crisis, 2009 crisis, because that was an example of a time where the barrier for entry for this sort of thing was lower. Like interest rates went down and a bunch of people bought houses that they could not afford. And that did not last long. Like that did not work out well for.

everybody and so basically everybody sort of had to pay the price for that. So I mean, there's probably some sort of sweet spot where, you know, everything is not too expensive, but I'm not an econ major. I don't know a lot about that. But I do understand from human, human behavior, basically, that people are just going to make the absolute stupidest choices for themselves and not care about the repercussions for the future. And I do agree with Sophia. I do agree with you that I kind of can empathize with this generation. Actually, I can empathize a lot with this generation because I am part of this generation.

And I do see how expensive things are, how much it's going to cost to buy a house and everything like that. And it's really bad. But at the same time, I look at my generation and we're making. some of the stupidest choices ever. Like, seriously, we are buying things we can't afford. We're going out and we're getting our $7 giant Starbucks. And the boomers make fun of us for this, but it's true. You do not need a $7 frapuccino with, uh, I don't know even what it is, like cool whip and, um, goodness gracious, what do they put like peppermint all sprinkled in?

artificial sugars, and milk, lots of milk. Tons of milk, yes. And if you want to do that, that's fine. You can literally make that yourself, though. And I actually, great example, I have a coffee right next to me, and it's got a ton of half and half in it because I love half and half. And it's like probably 5% coffee and 95% half and half. And I make it myself, and it costs nothing. I mean, not nothing, but this probably total is worth around 30 cents.

Whereas if I were to go try to get this at Starbucks, it would cost me $6. And people, I mean, there is a time component to it if you really need to save time in the morning and you're like in a rush and you just are so tired and you need a coffee. Like, yeah, fine, go to Starbucks. But try to plan to give yourself an extra 10 minutes to make a coffee in the morning, you know? Yeah, we're more and more reliant on. the actions of others. Yes.

We're less and less likely, it seems to make things. Or even if we make things, it has to be the specific brand, the specific video we saw on Pinterest or something. There's just this added encouragement, almost, to be dependent on reliant on certain things. And it kind of oddly reminds me of a funny story, but one that I think has some truth to it about how, um, and again, And this is me being more empathetic to the individual that's maybe spending too much, is how in my media theory course, I talked to a student who got rid of his phone and instead just had a

flip phone. And we asked him why. And he said something along the lines of he was sleeping. He had to wake up early at like 4 a.m. for a flight. And he had a bad dream about an AI demon or something. And his mom came to him to wake him up. And then he got shot up and was like, I can't have this anymore through his phone. And then decided to to downgrade to a flip phone, which is probably cheaper, even if it's less convenient, but you know, you're more in tune probably also to things around you in the real world, a less reliant. And he said it was crazy because when he was talking to, you know, people at the store, they were shocked and couldn't figure out why he'd wanted a young man.

Like occasionally they get older people who buy flip phones, but no one younger. And it's just this culture of dependency that also seems to be a culture that's more expensive. Yeah. And I mean, there is like the top 0.0.01 of people who are making a lot of money who probably are better off outsourcing their work to other people. For example, if you're making a million, $5 million, $5 million, a month, something crazy like that, and you work some, you know, hours that are, you know, not the best hours to be working, you might be better off door-dashing your lunch every day. Like, that trade-off is probably worth it because an hour of your time is more valuable. If you're making $24 an hour, that much time is not actually that valuable, you know?

Exactly. No, that's my point. It's almost like we're in a busier culture. like less and less, it seems, is someone actually only working nine to five? Although this further variability, because then there's also people that have useless email jobs. But for a lot of people, it's like, okay, yeah, we know DoorDash is more expensive, but we're so busy. We don't have time to go to the store. So it's this weird dichotomy, and it seems like to be a part of society or whatever or, you know, culture, you need to spend more money.

And that's kind of what I was getting at with like the flip phone story. like it's harder to be a part of it. And it costs more and more money to have all these new technological gadgets to keep up with everything. So it's almost like there seems to be further inequality with the differences in technology. And that's interesting because I do remember reading an article

about AI technologies and the like and how a lot of people are worried, I believe it was a Forbes article, about how these developing technology sectors could make differences and wealth between other countries even worse because, you know, there's some countries that simply don't have the resources really to develop certain technological systems compared to others. So it's like this, it might be this further distancing than before, which is really strange

to consider and think about. Yeah. And like you were saying earlier, I do think that if you decide to make wise financial decisions, you are sort of ostracizing yourself. You are opting out of society, you know? That's a conscious decision you make to sort of not go along with everybody else. And I mean, sometimes it's easier than, you know, not choosing to have an iPhone or an Android. Other times, you know, it looks like going out with your friends and not getting anything to eat or not buying anything.

But, I mean, those are definitely choices we have to make. It's become so normalized to buy expensive things. And, you know, I mean, obviously you have to find some sort of happy middle ground where you can not go crazy, but also save some money. Indeed. Well, thank you for listening to Flyover Features. I'm Sophia Mant with your co-host Emma Vrini. On Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. that.