Speaking as someone who learned the Hard Way about credit cards, my advice for people confronting the overarching and somewhat sinister spectre of the lending industry at large is to buy a good sharp pair of scissors, and apply them to your wallet contents as necessary so as to preclude your physical capacity to spend OPM, or Other People's Money.
Even if you only make minimum wage(perhaps especially if you only make minimum wage), you should recognize that such 'assistance' doesn't really end up helping YOU, but rather the lending institution that got you to sign on the dotted line, and helps perpetuate this fairly parasitic institution in general. There are times an instances where credit can help you, and if you run pretty tight books, you can eventually use it to successfully make big-ticket purchases and eventually emerge from such protracted transactions with the majority of your circulatory fluids intact. How-ever, this is unfortunately not the case for a lot of people, and the lending industry spends a LOT of money on lobbying so that they're free to operate in a less-regulated environment than might otherwise be the case. Net result? Bankers drive fancy cars, you take the bus. Go figure...

Does the new version of Life have a 30% per turn charge for using the Visa? Does it have penalty fees every turn for charging too much? How about penalty fees for not making your payment during the previous turn?

If they did that, it might make the game interesting.

Satellite Sky Blog

Find the Truth. Do Justice.

When you walk into a store and a sales person looks at REAL money like it's something they've not seen before, it is a very sad commentary on our culture. And our children see the real green stuff even less frequently than they see TV commercials for credit cards.

While teaching children about money, also teach them there are laws about dealing with creditors. Take the stigma and feelings of failure out of bankruptcy. This is NOT a bad word. People who file bankruptcy are NOT BAD PEOPLE! Generally they are products of a society who cares nothing about leaving people behind in lieu of greed. Accountability is the key POSITIVE word to teach them. GREED is the key that they need to watch for. If the greedy had to be accountable, there would be considerably LESS problems with fiscal responsibility on every level.

You SHOULD be responsible for paying for whatever you buy. You should NOT buy things you can't afford. BUT, if something either out of your control forces you into a situation where your debt is so overwhelming that it destroys your life - and I mean this literally in some cases is where people commit suicide - THERE IS ANOTHER WAY OUT!

YOUR LIFE is MORE IMPORTANT than your credit report! And I see adults every day who don't understand this. They ARE their credit reports! And if they get into financial trouble, they lose this identity and think of themselves as LESS than bad, worthless people. THIS IS NOT RIGHT! But it is certainly a side of the constant propaganda we hear, see, eat, etc. EVERY minute of every day!

Children should learn how to like themselves, how to be comfortable with themselves relative to WHO they are, and what they can accomplish with who they are. Children should learn how to make the things they don't like about themselves better, and accept the things they can't change. They SHOULD NOT identify with their credit report, which frankly, is NOT worth the paper it is printed on!

I have to remind many people that their credit reports are certainly NOT accurate, and even if something does not appear on their credit report, it doesn't mean they don't owe that debt anymore, or that a judgment magically went away. Credit reports are garbage, and a society such as ours, who functions around credit reports is a pretty sorry society. People are judged on these things! Although I also think children should be taught NOT to judge ANYONE, they should definitely be taught NOT to judge anyone based on their economic status, especially from credit reports which can have no basis in reality!

Personally I like bad credit! That way I don't have to worry about anyone stealing my identity and making any charges I would be faced with. I doubt if I could get credit, which is just great! If you don't have the case, can't get the cash, you probably don't need whatever it is you want to buy at that particular second in time - which you will forget you bought by tomorrow. Cars and houses are the exception, but in a perfect world, these kinds of major financial purchases by person who do not have the cash (most of us!) should not b e based on a piece of paper called a credit report.

If you can't meet your financial responsibilities, either because of a major change in your life, illness, or simply because you believed all the commercials, hype and propaganda the credit card companies spend billions on advertising, DO NOT HESITATE TO FILE BANKRUPTCY! Creditors like it! Why? Because you are debt free and are once again a sucker just waiting to happen! And you can't file again for 8 years, and thae creditors can get a LOT of money out of you in the form of interest and penalties by then!

Responsibility is paying for what you buy. Responsibility IS NOT paying outrageous, fraudulent amounts of money banks have made up and through legislators, gotten away with. File bankruptcy. It's a tax write-off for creditors. File bankruptcy - DON'T COMMIT SUICIDE; DON'T RUIN YOUR MARRIAGE; DON'T RUIN THE LIVES OF YOUR FAMILY; AND PLEASE DON'T FEEL GUILTY! IT's THE LAW. And it's a GOOD law designed to help the common individual for a change. Hope for the middle class! What if the entire middle class all filed bankruptcy and got rid of all of their credit cards and debt, lived only on cash, and started saving in order to buy the things with cash that they used to buy with credit. First of all, you remember WHAT you bought when you pay cash, rather than forgetting the thing you purchased on a whim with a credit card. Secondly, and most importantly, the credit industry would go bust and PEOPLE would be in control of their own lives again - not the money corporations! Wouldn't that be great!

My point - NOTHING is worth reducing the value of your life. Not even credit cards. If you have debt, you have rights. DO NOT accept or be intimidated by creditor calls that harass and lie and intimidate you into paying. It's something like "I don't care if you are on your deathbed and have only an hour to live, just write me a check before you die!" And that's the mentality that easy credit promotes and sustains. And it's supported by the fear it instills in unknowledgeable debtors who believe every word they are told by credit collectors. People can be and are torn apart by this. And IT'S ILLEGAL!

Be proud you filed bankruptcy and gave back to these kinds of creditor exactly what they gave to you. Sleep at night knowing no one is going to call and harass you. Sleep well knowing you don't owe anyone anything. It's a good feeling! There are some people in their twenties and thirties (?) who have NEVER known this feeling!

And just to make sure I have addressed the kinds of creditors children will run into - DON'T GET STUDENT LOANS!!!!! They are the most insidious lenders out there. For every debt you have, there is a statute of limitations, after which time, if the creditor has not obtained a judgment, they can no longer do so. This doesn't mean you don't owe the debt, it just means the creditor CANNOT collect it - if you respond correctly at the appropriate time. (DON'T IGNORE CERTIFIED LETTERS!) Student loans DO NOT have a statute of limitations (like murder, rape, treason and terrorism). So if you CAN'T pay your student loan, you're right down there with murders, terrorists, etc. Even child molestation has a statute of limitations!

And student loan lenders have ALL of the power of the federal government behind them. This means, unlike other creditors, depending on the laws of your state, they can garnish your income, take your tax refunds, garnish Social Security! and harass you THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!! So PLEASE SAVE for your children's education. Challenge the high cost of higher education - do this before your children are old enough to go to college. But WHATEVER YOU DO - DO NOT borrow student loans!

If you think that people who do not repay their student loans are bad, lazy, worthless people, look on justice@studentloanjustice.com for real stories about how people's lives have been RUINED by student loan lenders. THIS IS A MAJOR THREAT TO OUR ECONOMY, beginning in about 2-5 years, when baby boomers, the first generation who obtained student loans, have their Social Security checks garnished to repay student loans, from PRIVATE LENDERS (No, the federal government doe NOT do the lending). Most of these kinds of situations have been where someone borrowed perhaps $10,000 and now owe $60,000++++, even AFTER paying down the loan! Don't believe me? - Check it out under Student Loan Justice PAC.

As a culture, let's TEACH our children what money looks like and how to use it - how to count it! and how to put it in the bank for savings. Let's teach our children NOT of use credit cards - AT ALL! They DON'T NEED ANY! They are just a crutch! which is unnecessary if you know the real value of money and actually handle it occasionally. And teach them that if the do get into financial trouble, DON'T BE AFRAID OF BANKRUPTCY. It is the BEST thing to do to get out of debt! Everything else has consequences. The major consequence of bankruptcy - actually there are two. 1. you get far too many offers for credit, before, during and AFTER bankruptcy and thus you are tempted to revert back; and 2. Most importantly, you will be FREE to CONTROL YOUR OWN LIFE! That's a scary thought for some, but you can learn to live with it!

Sandy K.

GO GET 'EM SANDY!!!!!

Jim Anderson

The Truth About Credit

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