... let's have a meeting in a brewery...

... and another thing i was thinking was this:

i received a letter from citicorp the other day. not me, actually, it wasn't addressed to me personally but i figured, "i'm the householder, i guess i can open it..." guess what it was offering?

yep. a credit card.

i hardly trust myself with money i have, let alone money i don't have. if i may paraphrase groucho marx, i wouldn't want a credit card from a corporation that would give me one.

surely, at least in australia (where statistically i feel like i have more personal credit card debt than i'm ever likely to pay back, even though i have no credit card of my own), it might be considered reckless endangerment to be giving anyone any kind of encouragement to engage in further credit card use.

i know, i know - credit cards can actually be a strong and positive force for wise and productive use of money in modern society. of course, that would be why there's a global credit crisis, wouldn't it? because obviously we're all being so wise and productive in our use of credit cards.

using credit cards isn't even using money. using credit cards is promising to use money to pay the debt incurred by using the credit card. using money is taking cash from your wallet, which you earned through your mode of employment or received as some form of allowance or stipend, and giving said money to (or maybe - if we're really stretching it - using an eftpos transaction with) another individual or business in exchange for goods and/or services. well, actually, that's spending money. you could use money for all kinds of things... lighting cigars, chocking a table leg to level a wobbling table, marking a place in a book, fertilising your orchids...

i think sending applications for credit cards to australians is like advertising an alcoholics anonymous meeting in a brewery.