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It was a normal press release about the new payment method for food delivery. Or was it not?
Apparently, it wasn't. Recently, social media users, particularly in certain financial corners, have been buzzing with chatter about the burrito loans, a speculative product that could bring Wall Street down:
What was the beginning of all this? DoorDash, a food delivery service (DASH), announced on Thursday that it had partnered with Klarna, a provider of Buy Now Pay Later services to allow users to pay for their meals in four interest-free payments. Some wags joked about taking months to pay $15 for a burrito. Others went further.
Trung Phan, a business journalist, riffed a scene from the movie “The Big Short”, in which Steve Carell’s character realizes the severity of the subprime crisis and the issues surrounding collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
"The original loans are backed by burritos. [Chicken.] Pork. Carne Asada. Whatever. But Burrito CDO C, is a synthetic Burrito CDO. A CDO of Burrito CDOs," Phan wrote in a satirical post.
The comparisons between “The Big Short” (the film) and the CDOs that were at the heart of the Global Financial Crisis did not end there.
But "The Big Short" wasn't the only piece of media pulled into the fray: So was, for example, "The White Lotus."
Dave Ramsey, the radio personality and expert in personal finance, is another meme that has been popularized.
Ramsey himself even weighed in, effectively summing up the internet's reaction to the buy now, pay later burrito.