Now I understand the new Bankruptcy changes.
A recent poll of teenagers who participate in the Junior Achievement program found that more than 11 percent are carrying credit cards, and some of them are as young as 13 or 14 years old. In addition, three out of 10 teenagers have checking accounts, and many are likely linked to automated teller machines with debit cards.
If the Bushco can’t get all the parents’ money, they’ll make sure they get the next generation’s money one way or another.
“We were a little surprised at the numbers,” said Darrell Luzzo, senior vice president for education at JA Worldwide, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo. “Having a credit card is not necessarily a terrible thing, so long as they’re being educated about the appropriate financial principles.”
But while 82 percent of the teen credit card users said they paid their bills in full every month, 18 percent said they carried balances over — a practice that has gotten a lot of their parents in trouble.
“That isn’t great,” Luzzo said. “After a little more education, we’d hope that 82 percent would rise.”
Financial experts are concerned about the growing use of credit cards by teens, although they generally must be co-signed by parents until a child is 18 or older.
“I personally think that 13 to 14 (years old) is too young,” said Laura Levine, executive director of the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a nonprofit educational group based in Washington, D.C. “It really depends on the individual kids. … Kids mature at different rates, so I don’t think there’s a single, magic age.”
The key, Levine said, is the involvement of parents in teaching children how to use both credit and debit cards — and in monitoring their children’s use of plastic.
How does this happen? Not only will our children have to pay off the trillions of dollars that Bushco has ‘charged’ to us, now our kids will be a generation of debtors that won’t be able to go to college or get a job that pays well enough to pay off their debt.
I agree that we need to teach our children about finances, but maybe starting off with a savings account, earning an allowance but not ‘how to buy’ everything they want on credit- and they will, just like I did and like most of you at some point.
No wonder the GOP is so against abortion….
