It’s getting to be that time of year again. A time for joy, for sadness, for guilt, for pleasures and for bills.
The holiday season comes every year and yet people are annually surprised by holiday bills, and they will be again this year.
But that’s not really what this post is about. On the drive in today I thought about new years resolutions and what I feel like I can do better about next year. I’ve long skipped the usual empty promises of exercise and weight loss. I don’t need another purchased and unused gym membership to tell me I’m fooling myself about actually carrying those goals out.
In fact my desire in 2008 is going to sound completely ass-backwards, my goal is to try to find good ways to embrace credit. Now on face value that statement might look completely hypocritical based on my professional career as a debt expert but let me explain.
My day-to-day life is filled with battles about debt and contemplation of deeper thoughts about the ethics of modern banking or fair treatment of consumers by lenders. And trust me, all those battles and wars will still rage.
But what my thoughts were turning to was that if people are going to engage in credit, which leads to debt, isn’t there a way I can help them to make good and smart choices and decisions about which products to use and what to look for.
Sure, more education about financial products would be good in schools but I still have my doubts that it will make a significant difference. For me its a bit like giving people classroom driver education three years before they get in a car to really drive and how effective is that approach.
Recently I launched
I Buy Junk Mail and what I’ve noticed from the offers people are sending in is that creditors are doing an exceptional job of laying out the credit terms and conditions in the fine print of card offers. The good news and bad news of credit offers is all there. The shocker is to see some of the terms laid out.
The other project that has been enlightening has been the
Ethical Banker site that I launched to try to have an academic discussion about business ethics, banking ethics and reality. What has emerged out of that site has been a clear understanding, I hope, that modern banking ethics have nothing to do with the “fair” treatment of consumers. Rather the focus of banking ethics seems to be about the “fair” treatment of shareholder returns, market performance and the business.
So if there is little internal consideration for how the product impacts the life of the customer, then what I’m going to try to do for 2008 is a better job of explaining credit through education using actual credit offers. My hope is that if I can educate the consumer before the feast of credit begins that we will be able to eliminate some of the unfortunate debt situations we see on the back end.
At the end of the day I don’t want to live my life in conflict with others or be in a constant battle. I just want in the credit and debt world what we all ask for during the holidays, peace on earth and goodwill towards all people.
Steve
