money makes the world go round...

my car purchase last week has made me think quite a bit about the way in which our society functions financially. before buying the car, i examined my different financial options - cash purchase? loan? other financing options? these considerations were significantly influenced by what i felt was affordable for me.

i get the feeling that for many people, however, their perception of affordability is not the influencing factor, but rather is influenced by what their financing options are. it astounds me somewhat that i was able to go to a car dealership last weekend, test-drive a car, and with no more than signing a check over to the dealer - no background check, no credit check, no request for bank checks rather than personal ones - drive away, the new owner of a vehicle that 10 minutes earlier was sitting on the dealer's lot.

ok, so i'm not a credit risk. and, in fact, i'm a pretty conservative consumer, especially when it comes to things like buying on credit. that's not the case for most americans, though, which i think is a large reason why there is such a problem with debt in this country. the system is set up to entice us to consume above our means. just think about it: you want a new car, so you get a loan from your bank or somewhere else, and are able to purchase a brand new vehicle even though you have less than $3000 in the bank, a kid about to go to college, mortgage payments, and a one-income household. ok, maybe that's a little extreme, but the point is, you don't have to have money to be a consumer. a consumer of lots and lots of expensive things. you may borrow at exorbitant interest rates, but as long as you can keep borrowing to make those monthly payments, nobody is going to stop you from trading in your used subaru for a lexus.

granted, there are people who don't have access to credit: maybe they're in this country illegally, or maybe they defaulted on previous loans or declared bankruptcy and are no longer eligible for those 0% APR credit cards i get offers for twice a week. but most of us are in well-enough financial shape that we do have access to credit - and many in our society are caught in the trap of never quite paying everything off.

why does this bother me? i've been pondering the question for the past few days, and i think at the heart of the matter is the bottom-line. specifically, the pure capitalistic strategy of the banks, credit card and other companies that make that money available. to a degree, it makes sense - and it's certainly profitable. but at the end of the day, all of this easily acquired money (most of which we see only in the form of plastic cards or numbers written on a page somewhere - who pays cash for anything more than $20 these days, anyhow?) is only helping create a consumer culture where 1] "more, more. more!!" is seen as better, better, better; and 2] the gain of a few happens at the expense of many (not that that's new...).

maybe i'm idealistic, but i think that our society has a duty to raise educated consumers: educated about responsible purchasing and the pitfalls of spending more of that borrowed money they never actually see than they can actually afford to. and i think the companies have a responsibility as well to keep people from landing in quagmires from which they can't emerge. laugh if you will at my naivete, but i do think that corporate social responsibility extends that far.