Marketplace Scratch Pad

Kids and credit cards

Scott Jagow Sep 16, 2009

Our Small Town Hall is generating some discussion around the web, as we hoped it would. The Consumerist has started a debate about one of the questions we asked the kids: Should you have credit cards?

We talked about several topics, including saving, borrowing, the recession, and jobs. You can watch all the video highlights here. But here’s the video clip on the credit card question:

The Consumerist debate is fairly split. Among the responses:

  • Yes, absolutely. Give the kids secured credit cards where the limit is whatever deposit you put into it. Then when or if they make mistakes, they aren’t able to dig themselves an enormous credit hole. At the same time, those kids who are responsible would be building some credit history for the future.

  • No way, after being stupid and putting myself in debt in college, NO. It starts with “oh, it’s just for gas..” then it’s dinners, a few shirts, then it’s a computer… it just gets worse. I’m still working my way out of that crap.

I remember those days myself.

What do you think?

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