[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by DaFace

OK, I just thought of (what I feel is) a great analogy for why I get so irritated at R8ers and the like who are so anti-debt, so I figured I'd drop back by.

Credit...is like alcohol. (Hear me out.)

Like credit, alcohol gets some types of people into real trouble. However, for a vast majority of people, alcohol (and credit) can be used quite responsibly to produce a positive result.

When a conversation like this comes up, it's like a high school student telling his parents that his friends are drinking and asking for their advice. The parents have two broad categories of options: 1) tell him that drinking is evil and that he should never, ever do it OR 2) teach him how to drink responsibly (moderation, having a designated driver, etc.). It's certainly debatable which of these approaches will yield the best result, but I think a majority of people around here at least would agree that option 1 is doomed to fail. Option 2 has a much better chance of having positive effects in the long run.

So, when a thread like this comes up, there are really two responses. Yell and scream about how evil credit is, or teach people how to use it responsibly. I prefer the latter approach and believe that 1) credit is great if you know how to use it (and no, I'm not implying that it's a good idea to carry a balance on a credit card) and 2) telling people that it's evil isn't going to help them, and they're still going to end up using it anyway.

And prude parents who continue to think that alcohol is evil annoy the hell out of me.

The end.

I get the analogy. Maybe we can agree on this concept: people should learn to live completely free of debt before they start trying to harness the power of leverage and OPM.