There are not enough people around who recall when everyone had a wad of cash on a money clip or ran a tab to be cleared off. One of my first jobs was to collect slow pay (in a small company one did everything)
For that matter few people remember small company that hired 20 people and anyone who wanted a job could have a pretty cool one pretty quick. This buddy worked at a small fish processor, another work at a small furniture company, another worked at a small clothing manufacturer, another worked at a small ski maker... so much small business. And 22 year olds could buy a house in a nice neighborhood, working as a cook, in a small business. A few friends did, but since anyone coould buy a house any time, why would you tie yourself down at 22?
After 2 years working my way up at a small business I was off to the newly opened China as a buyer. As one with the gift of ADD I was not particularly good at anything except getting distracted, but back in those days ADD had not been invented and employers had to take what they could get. Now we have drugs, except for those in pain.
To discourage slow pay small businesses had begun charging interest (usury) on "past due" accounts. The funny thing is no one ever paid the interest. If someone owed $250 and 5 in interest, and we got a check for $250, we'd just "write off" the $5 interest owing. Of course.
Interest (usury) in practice never worked until the state got involved. The FED began creating funny money and cheap interest, so there was a shift from person to person and business to business to all transaction running through FED associated banks. Two effects: since the state could see every transaction, it could begin to tax every transaction. Since it was cheaper and easier to use funny money + cheap credit, everyone eventually did. But the first time anyone used a credit card to pay a medical bill was probably sometime in the 1980s, and pay for food was in the 1990s. This system has not been around long.
Companies like Department Stores put so much "on the account" of customers that a chargaplate system was adopted in which the bill of sale was impressed with a card number of the client, and billed at the end of the month (the stores kept these charge cards). The whole thing speeded up the writing down of the account info. You cleared your account at the end of the month. Usury was a crime and it did not occur to businesses to charge usury on their customers.
Eventually businesses with clients (such as gas companies and airlines) who moved around began issuing the charge cards to the customers, so when some NY bog shot flew to LA he could buy his airline ticket in NY on a charge card, fly to LA, you his NY oil card to buy gas in his LA rent-a-car, all within different offices of the same company. Accuracy and speed.
Eventually businesses started accepting each others' charge cards (you hear some older folks still referring to credit cards as charge cards). If someone showed up at a Flying A gas station in LA with a NY Kendall charge card, Flying A knew the driver was good for it. Take the card, make the impression on the sales receipt, bill the customer. If someone showed up ay a Western ticket counter in LA with a pan Am charge card, take it.
Eventually, circa 1960 bankers figured out that could let people slide on payment, charge usury and make money by shifting from charge cards to "credit cards." When some third party (American Express) was charging you interest Macy's was not the usurer.
In 1971 Nixon took USA of the semi-gold standard and the shift was tectonic. Around 1960 credit cards emerged, by 1975 I had a dozen of them. In the mail the offers would come, preprinted off lists sold by credit card companies to each other. In fact, the cards would show up in the mail with a credit limit noted in the introduction. Imagine that. No application, just use of the card constituted agreement to the terms and conditions. I am not making any of this up.
I recall a discussion with my agent in Hong Kong circa 1980 in which he declared he no longer carried cash, just credit cards, so now he would never get robbed (He had never been robbed, another example of humans eternally rationalizing wrongdoing.) I will say the skill and profession of pickpocketing went away, jacking iPhones is now.
People who used Taxis a lot all had accounts, and rich kids could jump in cab and put the tab on the parents. The world we have now is based on usury.
Our economic system has crashed and burned, and it is now on momentum, like how a space shuttle keeps flying after blowing up. When it comes down, will people know it was never necessary anyway? There is an alternative?
Dave Ramsey does not take credit cards and he has a huge online sales thing going. When WalMart and Target and IKEA cannot take credit cards, will the small local business return where the owner knows the customer. Will home loan officers know you again?
I hope so, so people can get good jobs again. Maybe we need a "pickpocket index". The more pickpocket arrests made, the better the economy.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
For that matter few people remember small company that hired 20 people and anyone who wanted a job could have a pretty cool one pretty quick. This buddy worked at a small fish processor, another work at a small furniture company, another worked at a small clothing manufacturer, another worked at a small ski maker... so much small business. And 22 year olds could buy a house in a nice neighborhood, working as a cook, in a small business. A few friends did, but since anyone coould buy a house any time, why would you tie yourself down at 22?
After 2 years working my way up at a small business I was off to the newly opened China as a buyer. As one with the gift of ADD I was not particularly good at anything except getting distracted, but back in those days ADD had not been invented and employers had to take what they could get. Now we have drugs, except for those in pain.
To discourage slow pay small businesses had begun charging interest (usury) on "past due" accounts. The funny thing is no one ever paid the interest. If someone owed $250 and 5 in interest, and we got a check for $250, we'd just "write off" the $5 interest owing. Of course.
Interest (usury) in practice never worked until the state got involved. The FED began creating funny money and cheap interest, so there was a shift from person to person and business to business to all transaction running through FED associated banks. Two effects: since the state could see every transaction, it could begin to tax every transaction. Since it was cheaper and easier to use funny money + cheap credit, everyone eventually did. But the first time anyone used a credit card to pay a medical bill was probably sometime in the 1980s, and pay for food was in the 1990s. This system has not been around long.
Companies like Department Stores put so much "on the account" of customers that a chargaplate system was adopted in which the bill of sale was impressed with a card number of the client, and billed at the end of the month (the stores kept these charge cards). The whole thing speeded up the writing down of the account info. You cleared your account at the end of the month. Usury was a crime and it did not occur to businesses to charge usury on their customers.
Eventually businesses with clients (such as gas companies and airlines) who moved around began issuing the charge cards to the customers, so when some NY bog shot flew to LA he could buy his airline ticket in NY on a charge card, fly to LA, you his NY oil card to buy gas in his LA rent-a-car, all within different offices of the same company. Accuracy and speed.
Eventually businesses started accepting each others' charge cards (you hear some older folks still referring to credit cards as charge cards). If someone showed up at a Flying A gas station in LA with a NY Kendall charge card, Flying A knew the driver was good for it. Take the card, make the impression on the sales receipt, bill the customer. If someone showed up ay a Western ticket counter in LA with a pan Am charge card, take it.
Eventually, circa 1960 bankers figured out that could let people slide on payment, charge usury and make money by shifting from charge cards to "credit cards." When some third party (American Express) was charging you interest Macy's was not the usurer.
In 1971 Nixon took USA of the semi-gold standard and the shift was tectonic. Around 1960 credit cards emerged, by 1975 I had a dozen of them. In the mail the offers would come, preprinted off lists sold by credit card companies to each other. In fact, the cards would show up in the mail with a credit limit noted in the introduction. Imagine that. No application, just use of the card constituted agreement to the terms and conditions. I am not making any of this up.
I recall a discussion with my agent in Hong Kong circa 1980 in which he declared he no longer carried cash, just credit cards, so now he would never get robbed (He had never been robbed, another example of humans eternally rationalizing wrongdoing.) I will say the skill and profession of pickpocketing went away, jacking iPhones is now.
People who used Taxis a lot all had accounts, and rich kids could jump in cab and put the tab on the parents. The world we have now is based on usury.
Our economic system has crashed and burned, and it is now on momentum, like how a space shuttle keeps flying after blowing up. When it comes down, will people know it was never necessary anyway? There is an alternative?
Dave Ramsey does not take credit cards and he has a huge online sales thing going. When WalMart and Target and IKEA cannot take credit cards, will the small local business return where the owner knows the customer. Will home loan officers know you again?
I hope so, so people can get good jobs again. Maybe we need a "pickpocket index". The more pickpocket arrests made, the better the economy.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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