Instant Gratification, Consumer Debt, and Jesus

Americans owe $1.2 trillion in credit card debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Once you are sunk into credit card debt, it is very difficult to get out of it, as almost everyone knows. The more you owe, the higher the interest rate you get charged, which makes it even harder to pay off your debt.

Credit card debt results mostly from instant gratification. Americans want to buy whatever they want right away, and use their credit lines to do so. I carried credit card debt most of my life. I lived frugally. In my case, it was not instant gratification that I was after, so just living frugally, as I tried to do, is not a guarantee of freedom from credit card debt. I finally paid it off, which saved me a lot of money in interest payments.

American banks want to make it easy for you to get a line of credit. They send out pre-approved credit offers to just about everyone. My daughter received one when she was eight years old. We filled out the application just to see what would happen. It was rejected, of course, but why was it pre-approved in the first place? One advertisement showed the family dog getting a pre-approved credit offer, and then said, who but a dog would put up with 18 percent interest? Banks cast a wide net, irrespective of age or even species.

Then I moved to France and found a very different situation. I wanted to live debt-free, and found that I was practically required to live debt-free. My bank debit card is tied only to my checking account. If I were to overspend my checking account, the payment would not necessarily be refused, but I would get a call from my personal banker (Thomas) telling me to get my rear in gear and live within my means. For such reasons, credit card debt is practically unknown in France. A writer for Slate online [https://slate.com/business/2025/01/credit-card-spending-france-debit-payments-budgeting-finances.html] had a similar experience.

Instant gratification is nearly the opposite of the kind of life Jesus taught. I don’t think I need to explain this. America is considered a Christian country, France a secular country, but it is in France that people live closer to the manner of which Jesus would approve, in this way as in many others.