dandrews:

crazynutjob:

This short summary is better than the NYT article it references.

I find it arbitrary that 13 year olds can get tried as an adult for murder, 16 year olds can drive, 18 year olds can vote, serve in the military, and get married, but you have to wait to be 21 to drink alcohol and, now, get a credit card.

I personally think one of the most important parts of the bill is the fact that limits the ability to get credit on those under 21. However, I don’t think it should exactly be age-based. I think stricter limits on those with ‘no credit’ should be imposed in general, as the current trend is to bombard those who turn 18 and head to college with credit card applications.

I can personally attest to how hard it is to resist this ‘free money’, and how it can set you back financially for a long time if you are even a little bit irresponsible. I certainly take any and all responsibility for the money I have spent over the years, but I think that if credit card companies have stricter lending guidelines, fewer young folks will get themselves into trouble.

And that’s a good thing™.

You don’t think that part of the reason young people have problems with credit is because it is new? Moving it back so that they have their problems when they are 21 isn’t a real solution. Besides, there’s ample evidence that very few people use credit cards intelligently at any age. But, more to the point, we’ve decided that at 18 a person should have the responsibilities of an adult, and is no longer “young people” (except those responsibilities related to alcohol, but I have a problem with that too). We trust a person at 18 with the power of the vote. They can serve in the military and they can get married. I can personally attest that my getting married at a young age was a mistake. Should that also be illegal? Is it the government’s job to prevent adults from making stupid decisions? Why is credit special? Legislating away opportunities to make stupid mistakes doesn’t make people smarter.

Aside from the nanny state issues, I have other problems with this law. My cousin paid off his home at age 24 (correction: 23, I had to look it up. I’ve mentioned him before). This wasn’t when he got his mortgage (and he did get a mortgage), this was when he owned it outright. He would not have been able to buy his home without a credit history (well, perhaps he could at the height of the bubble). Having a credit card at age 18 opened doors for him. It would be hard to overstate the value he places on his home ownership (but for starters, imagine that you didn’t have a monthly rent or mortgage check to write starting at age 23). This bill effectively makes it impossible for someone to repeat his feat. Not to insult my cousin, or to detract from the apparent wisdom in his choices, but anyone could have repeated his feat. My cousin didn’t go to college and works a blue collar job. His only financial advantage, which took the form of a down payment, came from working weekends and summer jobs in high school, making pretty close to minimum wage. This may be a fundamental point of disagreement between us, but I don’t think it’s justified to pass a law that protects adults from themselves if it prevents someone like my cousin from taking advantage of his own smart decisions.