Why do you need to do that? The rest of the developed world manages just fine without doing it.
Lenders determine who can pay, and lend to those people - that is, they look at their income and expenditure, at the time the loan is being considered.
If they don't then make their payments, the security is seized, and/or they go to court.
The entire concept of "credit rating" is based on the extremely dubious ideas that people never change, and that somebody who hasn't paid off a loan in the past, won't pay one off in the future - even if the reason that they didn't pay a loan off in the past was because they didn't take on a loan in the past.
It's more of the tired old puritan stupidity that assigns everyone a life-long, god-given, level of moral probity.
Credit ratings vary based on your behavior, they are not set in stone.
And it is a very useful measure, both of paying (for most debt there's no verification of income. The fact that you have a good record of paying what you owe is considered a pretty good indication you're not biting off more than you can chew) and as a general measure of responsibility. (While there are a few with bad credit ratings through no fault of their own the vast majority ended up there through not being careful.)
As for not having taken a loan in the past--all loans have aged off our credit reports by now. It's purely from paying credit cards, nothing else. Our ratings are in the ballpark of 800--and lenders treat anything above 740 the same. Thus if for some reason we were to apply for a loan we would be considered a good risk.
I am not
ignorant of the system, I am
derisive of it.
And what's your superior alternative for sorting out the deadbeats?
FFS.
There's no such thing as "the deadbeats". The human race cannot be divided neatly into tidy caregories of good/evil, criminal/law abiding, naughty/nice, or deadbeat/trustworthy.
Attempting to do so is a stupid vestige of puritanism.
That many Americans literally cannot imagine that this impossible categorisation is not a law of nature, doesn't make it a law of nature.
You cannot "sort out the deadbeats", any more than you can "jail all the criminals", or "hang all the witches"; and attempting to do so makes society a worse place to live for everybody.
While I deride the specific instance of this idiocy that is represented by the concept of credit ratings for individual citizens, I am even more derisive of the underlying broken philosophy it represents; And I continue to be horrified that you have been so effectively conditioned to accept that philosophy, that you are literally incapable of considering any other way of looking at your fellow human beings.
When I express horror at the use of Hollerinth Tabulators to assist the Nazis in rounding up every last Jew, it isn't a relevant response to ask "How else would you sort out all the Jews* with 1930s technology?".
I don't dislike the
method, I dislike the
goal towards which it is intended.
* and note that "Jew" isn't a real category either; The definition varies significantly, with some orthodox sects having very limited and restricted definitions based on observance of ritual, while most Jews have a broader matrilineal definition in which ritual is irrelevant, and the NSDAP had a far broader definition yet, in which patrilineal descent was considered to be of central importance. I am not a Jew by most modern reckonings, but I am Jewish enough to have been sent to the camps by the Nazis.
So there you go - Godwin has been satisfied, and you can go away in the cosy belief that my comparison with Naziism implies that your daft philosophy hasn't been validly challenged.