Should I Own a Credit Card?

A few weeks ago my friends and I got into a pretty heated argument about wealth distribution worldwide; and the need for Christians to view ourselves as part of a global culture instead of individuals in a capitalist society, chanting mantras to Caesar (I bet you can guess where I stood). But it really wasn't as easy as everyone agreeing. There were people heavily disagreeing in fact, arguing that personal freedom of consumption and free-market capitalism is the way to help the poor. We didn't see eye to eye. But in light of the conversation I then read this entry by Ben Witherington on his blog and thought I would share it. He mentions briefly the question of place of credit cards in it--and my friend just watched a documentary on the debt we are accumulating by credit cards, and I wonder about the place of them in our lives...

The Expensive Cost of Cheap Goods (By Ben Witherington)
There was an interesting story on ABC news tonight about the fallout from the lead paint recall of Mattel toys made in China. The story stressed that the Chinese workers now laid off were making about 18 cents an hour for their toil. Compare this to what blue collar workers would make over here performing the same task, but factor in the differing cost of living in the two places.

But the interesting sidelight to the story was an interview with a small toymaker here in the U.S. who makes toy trains. Suddenly he has been flooded with order requests, though this is probably short lived. There are some 10,000 toy making companies in China to which we out source, and only 50 made in the USA companies doing the same thing. Why? The answer is simple-- America's lust for cheap goods, which has destroyed more American companies than I care to count. Pretty soon all blue collar jobs will be out sourced, the way things are going.

I grew up in a furniture town-- High Point N.C. There used to be about 25 or more furniture plants making excellent furniture. Today if you ask how many companies actually make furniture there the answer is one--- just one. High Point is hardly furniture city any more. I think this is a loss. Americans have lost many opportunities to learn numerous trades which used to require artisanship, apprenticing, and the like. Now it only requires press board, and wood chips and slave labor.

Now I must tell you that I am not an advocate of no out sourcing of jobs, nor am I particularly enamored with protectionism. But I do think there is a heavy price that we pay for the right to buy cheap goods. And I wonder how as Christians we should view these things.

For one thing I wonder why it is that we have simply acquiesed to the culture of conspicuous consumption. Why is it that we feel compelled to buy so much stuff, ranging from junk to luxuries, neither of which we need? Shouldn't we be wiser about our purchases, and seek to buy things that are of quality and will last? Of course that might mean we might have to save up for it, instead of buying on credit! Imagine that.

I used to know a lot of Christians who believed on principle that we ought to never buy anything on credit-- no credit cards, etc. Sometimes they would make an exception when it came to a home, but that was about it. I am afraid we have not thought through, from a Christian perspective, either how we spend our money, nor what we spend it on, nor whether we ought to spend it at all, nor whether it is an ethical thing to buy cheap foreign goods to begin with. No we just stumble from one recall to another, and temporarily may repent and do better, but all the while 'shop until we drop' is the American motto, or "whoever dies with the most toys wins".

When we buy shabby goods with built in obsolescence we simply cheapen ourselves-- and frankly that's an expensive price to pay for conspicuous consumption. From a Christian point of view a person should not be defined or judged by what they have, but rather by what they give.

Hiroshima: Sixty-two Years Later

"Now is the time to exterminate the Yellow Peril for all time… Let the rats squeal."
—Congressman Charles A. Plumley, August 1945




We should never forget...

On August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 70,000 people. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed. In the following months, an estimated 60,000 more people died from injuries, and hundreds more from radiation.

Next to Vietnam, no topic in U.S. foreign policy generates as much historical controversy as the continuing debate over the use of atomic bombs to end the Second World War. Aside from the obvious point that two cities were largely destroyed, instantly killing over a hundred thousand Japanese (95% of them civilians), why does the use of atomic bombs against Japan still provoke controversy? After all, the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 killed nearly 100,000 Japanese in just two days, and B-29s dropped hundreds of tons of firebombs on other major Japanese cities. One important distinction is that a single bomb (a uranium device nicknamed "Little Boy") was dropped on Hiroshima, followed by a second one (a plutonium bomb nicknamed "Fat Man") dropped three days later on Nagasaki. Beyond the unprecedented explosive power (12.5 kilotons for the first bomb and 22 kilotons for the second one), the delayed effects of radiation were another important distinction. Whereas the fire-bombing of Tokyo produced a death rate of about 100,000 fatalities among one million casualties (10%), the two atomic bombs produced a death rate of over 50% with the inclusion of deaths due to radiation. By 1950 nearly 350,000 Japanese had died from the effects of Little Boy and Fat Man.