Are College Students Clueless About Credit?

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  1

  S.Howard-Sarin

  09/12/09 | Report as spam

  I wonder what their majors are?

  When I was in college -- looong time ago: the 80s, we had shoulder pads back then -- I *wanted* a credit card but was refused because of my major. I am not making his up; I saved the rejection letter.
  
  Now the world has flipped, and I wonder if the kids avoiding credit cards fall into certain majors?

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  2

  jillcurry

  10/25/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Are College Students Clueless About Credit?

  The use of credit?
  
  The use of credit ?
  
  Credit is not new, but significantly modified in the past forty years. Our predecessors owned farms, producing agricultural products: crops, wheat, hay, poultry, fruits, milk, beef, and other consumable or marketable resources. Crops harvest once per year, pending the variety, and credit issued by a local lender or merchant with knowledge of the farming industry.
  
  Furs and food were bartered (exchanging goods and services), based on need, quality and quantity. Labor used to barter shelter, food, and other survival needs. Most of us know the meaning of raising the barn in a day. A community working together to help neighbors erect a barn for shelter, breeding, storing grains, and other means. Working together bonded a community and made it strong and unified.
  
  The lending institutions became cash warehouses and loaned people?s money to other?s for interest in return. The lender used the people?s money to make money, and the same remains today. The financial business platform is about you borrowing your own money and paying a lender for the privilege of doing the paperwork. The basic plan overlooked in the education of students. The same applies to the savings systems, whether it is an IRA, 401, ESOP (employee stock option), mutual fund, bonds, or others.
  
  The federal government sets regulations and incentives, because it needs money for the infrastructure and business of operating a nation. States do the same on the local level. The people have no real control of what the taxes are going to be, or how the value is truly determined. Most is some form of manipulation, an expression of ?rob Peter to pay Paul?.
  
  The video shows students that know how credit works, do not know how credit works, or avoid it altogether. Notice the difference in the ethnicity of the audience. Not every culture is trained to borrow against them, rather hold on to their own money, and keep it within the family or community. Keeping money, goods, and services for exchange in house is safe and respectable. The risk is offering our money to some investor or group of investors to make decisions on our behalf. The Wall Street phenomenon is a phenomenon. How do you or I know if the dollar is real or artificial? What makes our dollar worth a dollar in the morning, and .50 in the afternoon? Why would we run the risk of having no control over our resources?
  
  Gambling in most states is illegal on the public level. However, gambling your wages for a lottery ticket is a worthy risk, because the money is used for educational improvements. Ok, so where is the money if teachers dismissed, schools closing in some areas, and students housed in trailers because schools overcrowded in others. I have not read reports that lottery sales are down, rather production of more tickets and stakes are on the rise.
  
  Globalization, technology, and the costs of production in the U.S. due to many variables gave our natural skills to produce goods and services to other nations. The federal government destroyed the small farmer with taxes and controls unable to satisfy with the fluctuation of weather conditions, lending rates, and the removal of a business handshake, the old gentlemen?s agreement. Suddenly, the U.S. became a tax proprietor to support growth of other nations. There went the substance of community. Deregulation of monopolies supposedly helped the citizen, but it is difficult to see how or where. Now we pay for everything, while ?Ma Bell? used to give us the telephone.
  
  If the video were accurate, it would show that students understand the philosophy of keeping your resources to yourself, and not use credit for anything except an emergency. Credit companies loved the medical and legal students, because the opportunity to secure a good salary was high. Credit enabled a cash poor student to reach their goal, but left with 20 years of debt repayment. Our current administration is doing the same. Pleading the public to get a government-backed loan and return to school. There are no jobs, so what is the government forfeiting when the loan repayment comes due? They will come after your assets: car, home, furniture, cash, and freeze all of your accounts until it is paid. If you find a job, you will probably not get the hire because the IRS will send a letter to the hiring company to garnish your wages. No company wants the added expense of wage garnishment implemented in the cost of doing payroll.
  
  Think, think, think!