We have covered a number of topics in this chapter, but the unifying message is simple. For mortgages, school loans, and credit cards, life is far more complicated than it needs to be, and people can be exploited. Often it’s best to ask people to take care of themselves, but when people borrow, standard human frailties can lead to serious hardship and even disaster. Here as elsewhere, government should respect freedom of choice; but with a few improvements in choice architecture, people would be far less likely to choose badly.
