ldeveraux wrote:If you can't trust yourself with simply owning a credit card and using it responsibly, how can you trust yourself with having money?
Oh man...this is one of those things I have a lot of feelings about.
Because I used to work in financial services, which I came to learn was a sector run by people who have only the vaguest sense that there are human lives at the other end of their decisions, and zero fucks about it regardless (they can always pay an ad agency to make them look nice). Like I couldn't believe how openly cartoonish the villainy I encountered was.
The limitation on the money you have is the amount of money you have. The limitation on a credit card is however much the credit card company feels they can bilk you for indefinitely without breaking you (because then you could declare bankruptcy & get off).
The average US household has
$16,061.00 in credit card debt, meaning the average household is paying $3000 a year for the privilege of using their own money slightly ahead of time. This is an amount which coincidentally is almost enough to make a
completely stupid purchase like that Saturn soba delivery game, except then you'd actually have something worth money.
Credit card companies frame their product in terms they know full well are pure nonsense, like "adult responsibility" "sensible household finance management" etc. They paint paying off monthly credit card debt as something a good, 'normal' adult does.
Except no small part of the reason banks invariably have the largest and flashiest skyscrapers in every major city on Earth is that they have reams of actuarial scientists, paid psychologists & game theorists. Who can all tell them that the constantly present temptation of credit exceeds the capacity for sustained self-regulation of the overwhelming majority of the human population. As well which types of purchases to incentivize for habit-formation of daily need and impulse purchases on credit. They are entirely aware that most adults can't pay off what they'll be induced to spend every month (or even if they can, will be tempted into spending
that money on something else), and thereby ensure a steady stream of interest payments to the banks. They wouldn't even be in that business otherwise.
I had a really great psychology prof in undergrad who taught me the Odysseus principle: when his ship was sailing past the sirens, Odysseus had his men lash him to the mast so he couldn't be tempted into doing something stupid and ruining himself. The lesson being that if you really want to avoid being tempted into doing something, take away your ability to do it.
That wasn't really directed at you, sorry. 
