The Gist

Credit Where Credit Is Due

The credit reporting bureaus don’t care about you. Why should they?

The three credit bureaus.

Tony Webster/Flickr

Listen to Episode 832 of Slate’s The Gist:

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This much we know: The Equifax data breach is bad. How can the credit bureaus, who have been described as the “plumbing” of our financial system, show so little regard for the people whose data they collect? New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson says it’s simple: We are not their customers, we are their product. Morgenson writes the Fair Game column. Her most recent book is Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon.

In the Spiel, the Jimmy Kimmel test.

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