Credit and Credit Cards Going out of Style

Every day I check my email or mail box to find several credit card solicitations or some marketing firm pimping free credit reports or quick cash. Here’s the deal, we are in a credit crisis, people are losing their jobs and companies are going out of business. Many folks say consumers need to be more responsible with their credit and finances. Others encourage we take classes to learn fiscal responsibility. I ask how responsible is it for creditors to be selling credit during these difficult times? Now granted I probably get a slew of these solicitations because I click on them-to find out their schemes, but let me breeze you through some email slogans, “Need Cash, Women’s Pay Day Here to help,” and my favorite, “Bad Credit, No Problem.” This is like selling alcohol during the prohibition years, or chocolate to those who are dieting.

Here is my thought and it is all about supply and demand. Years ago, everyone wanted and used credit like it was going out of style, but as fashion goes out of style, so does goods and services. Take milk men for example. There was a time, not too long ago when a milk man delivered milk to your front door. Now, not only do you have to buy it in a store, today milk is considered bad for you if you’re lactose intolerant. And what about those products we couldn’t live without, the Walkman, the CD player. Maybe we are coming to a time in our society when credit and all its accessories are going out of style and human ingenuity and creativity will take us to the next great phase in our culture.

I remember once when author Edward Albee spoke at my college. He said something that stuck with me all these years. “Artists are the first to see the wave of the future, Businessmen are second in order to capitalize and politicians are last, if they ever see at all.” My point is we are investing a lot of money and energy in a “service” that is currently not benefiting our society very well, i.e. credit cards. Not to mention, consumers want to be freed of it, yet big business continues to shove it down our throats. This all comes down to making money for credit corporations. Responsibility tells consumers to use credit sparingly, but if we do so credit companies will not be as rich and powerful.

I’m not suggesting we cut up all credit cards and toss them in Boston Harbor, I’m just saying maybe businesses can look at how they are allocating money in their firms to find better ways of maximizing efforts that benefit all, instead of investing in advertising to sell us something we don’t really want and in many cases, bad for us.