Joseph York

Credit Cards Re-Imagined: Could Credit Cards Actually Promote Financial Wellness

What parts of modern American life aren’t influenced by money? It mediates the relationship between individuals and nearly every domain - to nature, health, education, art, social justice, religion. It is nearly inescapable within the context of everyday life. Given its ubiquity, money is naturally complex. At its best, it can serve as a tool in the pursuit of life’s greatest satisfactions. At its worst, it becomes a preoccupation that serves as an impediment to those same dreams. Credit cards amplify the stakes further. The right loan can enable a business or individual to climb to previously unimaginable heights. If mismanaged, over-borrowing can lead to crippling debt. The negative dimensions of modern financial life can be hard for individuals - especially members of the middle class - to articulate. Experienced first-hand, they seem abstract and hazy. People feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction, unable to attribute it to specific causes. This paper explores the financial haze many Americans find themselves caught in. Based on a comprehensive review of secondary sources and a new body of primary research, the author argues that the haze is a result of a swirl of forces so large, they become difficult to contemplate. They operate at the level of economic, societal, and technological systems – with ripple effects that influence individual psychology. It takes a holistic evaluation of the forces at play to plot an alternate course out of the money haze. A more holistic understanding illuminates a pathway from hazy unconsciousness to individual financial empowerment. Using credit cards as a representation of the system’s most complex paradoxes, the author proposes a reimagining – one that challenges some of the most basic assumptions that underlie a broken system. http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/3009/