The Death of the Credit Card Economy

[jeffrey]

The most revolutionary notion in commerce today is one of the oldest. If you want to buy something, you may actually have to pay for it. We are reverting from a "borrow and buy" economy to the "cash and carry" model of our grandparents.

The Olesons may have extended store credit to Ma and Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, but widespread consumer credit is a very recent phenomenon. It began in the 1920s, when expensive consumer durables—cars, refrigerators—were first produced in mass quantities. It wasn't until Bank of America began carpet-bombing California with credit-card applications in the 1960s that the debt wave started in earnest...

The death of the credit card economy. - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine

[choicearizona]

There was a big article in our paper about trying to do away with those companies who patrol our college campuses to sign up kids for credit cards. I think you will always have those kids who cannot manage money. But what would help is if we would teach finance to our kids when they are in junior high and high school - serious finance, not just how to balance a checkbook.