Apart from deception or poor service, the more basic problem is the financing: consumers often end up paying two to four times the market value of the product.
And with net prices falling from continuing rebates and cheap financing, consumers continue to show signs of using discounts to trade up to luxury brands.
Deprived of this financing, consumers have had difficulty purchasing homes and automobiles, and companies have had difficulty purchasing inventory and making capital investments, causing the real economy to shrink.
Instead of financing consumer spending or business expansion it appears to be financing the purchase of existing assets instead.
Through subsidiaries, Transamerica provides services in insurance, sales financing, consumer and commercial loans, equipment leasing, mortgage banking, computer services, and mutual funds.
The two agencies started up a limited version of the TALF program last month, which is mainly focused on financing consumer and small-business loans.
These products and services are within the categories of lending, personal finance, retail and institutional investments, equity financing, consumer banking, and several others.
Banks simply created home-equity loans to finance consumer borrowing and the interest remained tax deductible.
They have found a creative way to finance consumer splurges by providing quick loan approval via text message or automated teller machine.
With 21 full-time tenure-track and 16 affiliated faculty members, the MIT Sloan Finance Group covers a broad range of research interests including corporate finance, consumer finance, risk management, international finance, derivative securities, financial engineering, asset management, and behavioral finance.
[Excerpt] In the 1920s, Americans, both borrowers and lenders, discovered new ways to finance consumer credit, and, of course, it was only the beginning.
