The Economy Is So Bad That People Are Using Klarna for Rent and Utilities

Uncategorized

There was a time in the not-so-distant-past when credit cards were a genuine novelty for American consumers.

First emerging in the late 1950s, credit cards spread through households like wildfire during the 70s and 80s, fueling the rapid development of card technology and thus enabling them to become ubiquitous personal finance vehicles they are today. In a matter of decades, private credit has become the bedrock of the post-industrial US economy, contributing nearly $900 billion to the country’s GDP and providing six million jobs over the past three years alone.

Now in 2026, those omnipresent slabs of plastic are just the tip of the iceberg. The financial industry has options available to every strata of consumer, from predatory payday loans for poor and working-class people to crypto-backed loans for upwardly mobile yuppies. And then there’s the “buy-now, pay-later” loan, those credit card-free vehicles which up until now were reserved for small, one-time consumer purchases like furniture — or meal delivery.

According to a recent survey by the loan marketplace LendingTree, however, BNPL-style lending from apps like Klarna and Afterpay are increasingly becoming the go-to for struggling households to pay for basic needs. Flagged by the New York Times, the survey found that half of those using BNPL loans said they’d have no way of making ends meet otherwise.

That’s a simply astonishing figure, given that US consumers spent close to $160 billion through BNPL loans in 2025.

As Karen Webster, chief executive of news and market research company Pymnts, told the NYT that BNPL has become the “working capital for the modern middle class.”

“Consumers are using it more for essential, everyday things,” Webster explained. This includes services like veterinary, dental, and medical care, as well as recurring expenses like rent and utility bills.

Take Baltimore resident Ashley Reed. After a family medical emergency forced her to max out her credit cards, Reed turned to BNPL loans from a number of companies like Klarna in order to pay for things like electrical bills and auto insurance. She now coughs up about $700 a month paying down the worst of the debt, per the NYT.

“It’s a roller-coaster ride, up and down — I can’t afford to have an emergency,” Reed told the paper. “Sometimes I’m like, OK, am I going to have enough for groceries?”

Of course, it’s a Band-Aid fix for the systemic issue of affordability, as working people like Reed find themselves squeezed both by rampant inflation and horribly stagnant wages.

BNPL loans “address the real need that people are short of funds,” Lauren Sanders, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center told the NYT, “but just adding fees to their monthly budget and leaving them short next week is not the answer.”

More on finances: AI Billionaires Are So Greedy That They’re Supercharging Sales of Yachts and Private Jets

The post The Economy Is So Bad That People Are Using Klarna for Rent and Utilities appeared first on Futurism.

IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews