essay

Credit Cards

When it comes to global economy, I am no expert; but it is evident to who are to blame for the global financial crisis.  I believe that credit cards are at the root of it all due to credit card statistics by Money-Zine.com stating that, “there were 173 million credit card holders in the United States in 2006, and that number was projected to grow to 181 million Americans by the end of 2010.”  I feel credit cards help ruin people’s lives by how often they get misused. They target young naïve adults who have little or no money, which later creates massive debt, and ultimately creates a global financial crisis.

Credit cards are made easily accessible to young adults who get targeted by companies due to their lack of knowledge. Companies understand this fact and use that to their advantage by approaching young adults such as, incoming college students who have many expenses. According to Sara Melone, “It's not uncommon to find credit card representatives stationed on college campuses to sell students on the benefits of signing up with a credit card company.” The credit card companies offer special deals that appeal to young consumers who know little about the consequences of obtaining it. These young adults are often naïve when it comes to handling a credit card and end up having more than one. By doing so it causes debt in America to start at an early age.

            Debt starts at an early age because most young adults are not financially stable.  They tend to apply for credit cards to be able to pay for their living expenses once they have reached their adolescent years. Many start off with one credit card to have money to pay for their expenses and end up having to get multiple cards in order to pay off their original debt. Credit card companies issue multiple cards out to people knowing that many cannot even pay off one, thus encouraging debt in America to occur. Back to the example about targeting young adults, credit card companies know that, “ while students are much more likely to pay off their balances, they tend to pay late and exceed their credit limits more frequently than other groups, and therefore incur more fees than other groups( Money-Zine.com).  This example shows how credit card companies know that by issuing cards to young adults they would end up accumulating more fees than any other group age.

            Accumulated fees build up and can carry over with a person throughout their lifespan. Since, most start off with credit cards at a young age it helps promote more debt to occur earlier in life. Many people are looking towards having more credit cards because nowadays most people have been getting laid off from their jobs, since we have been in a recession. According to Tommy Camp, he states that by him getting laid off from his job he looked towards having more credit cards, so that he can afford major bills such as, mortgage, car payments, and college loans. So by having many people in debt throughout the country it’s affecting the economy by a whole because nobody has money to spend. However, with having people in debt it’s causing a great global financial crisis. I feel that credit card companies are who to blame for our countries financial crisis because I have seen to many people who look to get a credit card just because they lost their jobs and have no kind on income to afford bills. The way we can climb out of the recession is by having more jobs so that people do not look towards accumulating bad credit debt. The only way we can avoid a crisis in the future is by having more jobs available for Americans.

            Credit cards companies target young naïve adults who have little money, later create massive debt, and leads to financial crisis. I feel that credit cards help ruin people life’s from the debt that it puts them into; also many young adults tend to get credit cards at a early age just because it’s a norm in today’s society. At the end of all this, I believe people who do have credit cards should be very careful when using them.