Ah the magical land of "all or nothing". Very GW Bush of you all! Kudos! You're either with us or against us! If you have a dollar bill in your pocket, then you are a slave of the Fed!
Some of the points made so far are grand. Some are a bit off.
When you get your bills at the end of the month, is it for things you've already used/bought, or is it for things you will use/buy in the future? If you pay your power bill after you've used the power, then aren't you accepting the power and then promising to pay at the end? Isn't that a kind of "credit" in and of itself? It's the same with a credit card, if you actually pay for what you've purchased.
The companies are out of control, and it stinks, so I don't really use credit cards. I know a certain someone in this chatroom who never did pay off that huge credit card balance he racked up, after the company was dumb enough to give him a high credit limit. He maxed it, and it's still sitting there. The balance is probably in the $7000 range now.
Credit cards used to be what I kept around in case of emergency. If I had to book a flight to a funeral, or grab a hotel because a tornado ripped my house apart, a credit card would be a dandy thing to have. It also helped build my "credit score" so that I can one day get a house. I don't see having $100,000 or so saved up if I am paying out rent every month. As for the "investment" portion, a home can gain value if you work on it. Boo hoo it's hard? Put in a new floor, put on an addition, reconfigure the rooms, change the materials. Given the alternatives, buying a home that you can improve and that will stay generally sound is a better idea than renting perpetually. The problem is people do not make smart purchases, and the interest on the loan overshadows any profit they've made on the whole deal. At the end of the day, you have more privacy and potential in a home than in an apartment.
What people should stop doing is buying that coffee on their credit card.
Be responsible with your money and you have an important bargaining chip. I cringe every time I see a show on television and the home is "100% financed," meaning the charming couple didn't even bother to assemble a downpayment.
My next car is going to be all downpayment
I've decided to put off buying it about a year, and just plunk down the cash. I've always wanted to do that, anyhow.
And cars aren't even that good an investment
Freedom includes freedom to be irresponsible. The trouble comes when people want to shove that irresponsibility back at everyone else. Pay for my mistakes? No thanks.
