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One interesting lens for understanding how industries work is looking at their waste streams. Every industry will by nature have both a stock and a flow of byproducts from their core processes. This waste has to be dealt with (or it will, figuratively or literally, clog the pipes of the industry) and frequently has substantial residual value.
Credit card debt is the waste stream of consumer finance. The debt collection industry ends up being sordid, for complex structural and microeconomic reasons.
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Duration
~35 minutes (34K characters)
Release date
Aug 11, 2023