by Jared Chamberlain

Created on: January 05, 2009

Allow me to first clarify my position. Yes, teens ought to have credit cards, but onlyas a credit building tool so that they may be in a better financial position upon graduation. Credit cards, when used sparingly and responsibly can be a very good thing. The more responsible you prove yourself to be, the more willing lenders will be help you out when it comes time to buy a house, a car, a small business loan, etc. If teenages were taught in high school how to manage their money, balance a checkbook and use credit cards responsibly, we could significantly improve the financial landscape of the country as opposed to facilitating credit crises like we are currently facing.

What should you use credit for? Well, things like gas and eating out are good items to place on credit ifyou pay them off every month. These are things you can budget for with relative ease and you can have one bill to pay off every month and see exactly how much money you spent and where and when you spent it. What should you not use credit for? You should not use credit to supplement your income, to buy big-ticket items that will take months, if not years, to pay off, and you should not use it for Starbucks or Big Macs. Use cash for these items and buy them sparingly. Fast food and daily coffee can quickly add up to several hundred dollars throughout the year. Don't you think if kids learned early to budget and use credit responsibly that they could largely avoid the pitfalls of the credit card use in the future? I wish I had learned these things in high school! Maybe I would have avoided some mistakes that I have made. I have learned, however, and am turning things around to how they ought to be, thanks to being interested in learning and applying certain principles and heeding the advice of well-known financial gurus and a successful, business-owning uncle.

Additionally, if teenagers shouldn't be allowed to use a Visa, should we allow the national government to continue the dangerous credit card spree it has been on lately? Should we allow them to bailout failing companies using our tax dollars and selling T-bills to make up what tax payers can't supply? Surely teaching teens proper credit management would be more beneficial. It seems to me that simple fiscal conservatism would have been a good class for the CEOs of the Big 3 U.S. car companies to take. The same goes for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Secretary. I would say the same for Congress, except they have different motives. They need to get reelected and to do that they need to appear to be making the citizens of their districts better off by using borrowed money to fund community projects. A simple financial skills class would not cure their disease.

But, if governments can demand that schools teach evolution exclusively and indoctrinate children to believe they ought not have a negative opinion of homosexuality, and prohibit students from using aspirin or cough drops while distributing condoms and morning-after pills without informing parents, then I should not be surprised that they advocate financial misdirection rather than fiscal responsibility.

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