What happens first: young people making occasional bad decisions or the credit card companies targeting them?
I am not in a position to judge. I think everyone in this book made some mistakes somewhere along the way. But what I am trying to do by choosing such a diverse group is to show that it does not matter where you come from, there are similar patterns that affect almost everyone. It’s true that I don’t think that it is a good idea to put a $10,000 credit line in the hands of someone who is already unavoidably in debt. Because that’s the thing — when you have to borrow money to get into college, just as you take your first step toward independence, already you are a debtor. And it changes your psychology. For a lot of people, it is a rationalization that makes it much easier for them to owe on credit cards. Because it lets them say, “Well, I already owe $25,000, what’s another five grand? Right, you get that all the time. I have friends in law school, and everything they do, every penny they spend, they are going to pay two pennies on in the future while they are living on their loans. B
