Wacky Wednesday--Credit Cards Should Be Illegal

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

--Not all economic choices are permitted: banking, stocks, and gambling are heavily regulated, and slavery prostitution, and selling body parts prohibited.
--As a credit counselor friend of mine once quipped, “Credit cards are like crack cocaine, and banks are very smart drug dealers.”
--They are primarily (almost entirely) used by individuals for personal consumption of luxury items beyond their means to pay.
--Financial experts universally hate them and advise people to get rid of them.
--Most ordinary people can’t handle them responsibly
--Most people don’t understand, let alone that they can’t perform the math associated with them
--Offering someone a 20 year loan on a dinner out?
--How is it good for our community to have so many people saving so little and indebted so heavily?
--Spouses don’t fight over money. They fight over debt. How many marriages are ruined by debt addiction?
--Everyone you talk to who has debt wants to be debt free. That alone should tell you it isn’t a desirable condition. It’s a lot like people who smoke talking about how bad smoking is.
--Debt at its core is buying things you don’t yet deserve because you haven’t yet earned them.
--Debt is such a burden that it reduces productivity and depresses people in a debilitating way.
--Decreases savings
--Leads to bankruptcies.
--We have a collective problem with debt and budgets.
--Ruins the value of currency earned because credit devalues my cash by making me compete for goods with people who haven’t earned the privilege.
--If you can’t live without one, then you really have no business having one.
--Fraud
--Even for people who use them well, their liberty is funded by other people’s irresponsibility and pain.
--Prov 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave
--The Bible warns us very sternly against materialism, misuse of money, abuse of the poor, and greed. God clearly cares greatly how we handle our money.
--Borrowing is never mentioned favorably in the Bible.
--Jesus taught that it was more blessed to give than to receive, not that it was more blessed to loan than to give.