Credit cards are simply not the problem. It is our handling of them that leads to problems. If you are in the hospital and you are given a specific drug for a certain condition, you would not expect that drug to cure another problem that you had, would you? No, of course not. You are smart enough to realize that an antibiotic might cure an infection, but it certainly won’t cure your liver disease. That is just common sense. Why is it that people think that if they don’t have enough money to afford something, that they can put it on their credit card and everything will be all right. The bottom line is, if you can’t afford it, maybe you shouldn’t buy it until you can afford it.
Credit cards were designed to allow us to avoid carrying so much cash on our person, give us a record of our purchases, provide us with recourse against defective products and to enable us to stretch our income over a short period of time. They were never intended to replace our income because, after all, they are not additional income, they are just a monthly loan that we can choose to pay off or extend if we are in a bind.
Americans have become as dependant on their credit cards as the U.S. Government has become on extending the debt ceiling. Both have got to learn to spend within their means. You can only spend more than you take in for so long before the whole house of cards comes crashing down. We are seeing this in the market’s reaction to the raising of the debt ceiling. We needed to cut the spending not raise the debt limit.
Once you realize that credit cards are a financial convenience that should not be abused you will have a new lease on financial security. Now if only we can convince the idiots in Washington of the same thing.