Abdul Al-Assad argues the financial system lets rich people borrow to buy companies, but regular people can only borrow for stuff that loses value. His firm Basic Capital wants to let anyone BNPL stocks like Berkshire Hathaway, not just Coachella tickets.
I saw the power of credit. And what I noticed is institutional clients of Goldman Sachs and high net worth clients of Goldman Sachs use credit to buy assets. PE firms issue bonds, they borrow to buy a company. It's called leveraged buyout. Everyday people use credit to consume. And that kind of really switched the flip to me. Every time we looked at consumer credit, you were like, what did the consumer use these loans for? It was oftentimes revolving credit cards that they used it to go to a trip to Vegas. Something like 60% of Coachella tickets were financed via buy now, pay later. And the radical assumption that we're asking at Basic Capital is, if I can buy now pay later a Coachella ticket, why can't I buy now pay later a share of Berkshire Hathaway? If I can buy now pay later a car, which is a depreciating asset, why can't I buy now pay later an appreciating asset? And what I noticed is that it's really easy to finance consumption in America, but it's really difficult to finance investing in America.
