If there is one thing that this whole crisis teaches us, ordinary consumers, it is about the idiocy of living in credit. Rightly termed, the morass where the US market is credit crisis -- because of its system that thrives on credit. Americans, even in buying candies or in paying for the newspapers they pick from the newsstand, would rather use their credit cards than take coins or small bills from pocket. It's systemic. People in US have become known in terms of their credit capability. Everyone is availing credit cards, and one's socio-economic stature is determined principally by one's credit history. Are you a trustworthy creditor, or not?
And this system, as expected, caused the coming to be a behavior. Take a peek at any American's wallet and you definitely would see not just one or two, but three or four or even more credit cards. But more than this peripheral sign of the behavior that we are hinting at, one can observe that Americans have become accustomed to spend what they are still about to earn. Aside from the credit-card-mentality that I alluded too in the preceding, one can also add that sense of confidence that Americans have - or had - towards their economy. They were enjoying first of all security of labor tenure; thus, they can be certain that whatever they acquire through credit they can pay for. Or so they thought.
While most of world's inhabitants' attention focuses on the gigantic bail out plan implementation after the US Congress finally approved it and Mr. George W. Bush signed it into law, one deems it called for to look at the axiological dimension of this global economic slide.
For sure, a lesson from this transpiration is not about parsimony or stinginess. It's about living within one's means. And this entails living not within tomorrow's income, but within today's earnings.
In the concrete, this would mean disposing your credit cards. These cards are not services, but products that take undue advantage against consumer vulnerability. It is like a sin in your wallet (note: the analogy is meant to invoke the imagery in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were tempted), that prompts strongly one to commit sin.
We have seen how this sin has caused the chaos that we are at present seeing in the world market. Unless we would want our own chaos of the same degree and quality in our own individual world, …
