Relentless Promotion of Debt

Financial manipulation through the relentless promotion of debt leverages sophisticated marketing strategies to create a false sense of financial empowerment.

The promotion often creates an illusion of affordability, making it seem that high-cost items are comfortably within one’s financial reach through small, manageable payments.

Credit card companies and retail stores often promote consumer credit or store cards with phrases like “Buy now, pay later” or “Interest-free for 12 months.” These promotions highlight the ability to obtain desirable items immediately without paying upfront, playing down the ACTUAL costs and financial risks.

Mechanisms of This Manipulation

Creating Illusions of Affordability: Marketers focus on low initial monthly payments to overshadow the total cost over time, including high-interest rates that kick in after introductory periods.

Exploiting Aspirational Desires: These strategies exploit the consumer’s desire for immediate gratification and the lifestyle aspirations that many people have, suggesting that owning the latest products is within easy reach through debt.

Normalization of Debt: Debt is portrayed as a normal and essential financial tool, suggesting that smart consumers leverage credit to manage their lifestyle and financial aspirations.

A typical example is a car dealership promoting low monthly payments for a new car with phrases like “Drive it today for just $199 a month.” The focus is on the small monthly outlay, making the car seem affordable and the purchase decision easier and immediate. The long-term financial impact, including total interest payments and the total cost of the car after all payments, is minimized or hidden in the fine print.

The first step to become more independent of society’s thinking is to become financially less dependent on it. But the current financial world is designed to keep you dependent on it. And the easiest way to keep you dependent is to trap you in high interest loans that are easily available to you. They are called credit cards.

The only thing credit cards are good for is added security and ability to make recurring international transactions easily. Any other reason is a trap.

Credit cards trap you into believing that you can afford something when you really can’t.

When you pay a big sum out of your pocket, there is an emotional pain involved. So, you think about your purchase and don’t unnecessarily buy things you don’t really need.

But there is little emotional pain when making small monthly payments, at least in the beginning!

So, you end up buying ten such items without thinking much.

 Eventually you end up accumulating many things that you realize you didn’t really even want or need!

The pleasure of owning these items is long gone and the only thing you are left with is the stress of paying them off.

Let’s not even talk about cashbacks and reward points. In exchange for getting a credit card to get a two percent cashback, you are looking to pay up to a 42 percent interest rate annually (depending on the card) if you mess up.

No investment in the world can ever increase your wealth if you are stuck in a 42 percent debt that compounds annually.

And further, guess what the financial companies WANT you to mess up. You might confidently believe that you will pay off the money in full every time. But that’s the trap.

If you don’t mess up today, you will mess up in the future, especially if you are in an emergency, don’t have savings in the bank and desperately need the money.

It is then you will take the decision to use your card to pay for an emergency. Because you didn’t have money in the bank in the first place, you won’t be able to pay the full amount and will get stuck in the trap of paying the minimum amount.

And this is you get trapped in the vicious cycle of high debt and paying one loan by taking another loan.

That’s the game. So never even think about using a credit card if you don’t have considerable money for emergencies already saved up.

Where else do you think the banks reward you your points from? From others like you who messed up.

Debt has a way of feeling less real than actual money, and that illusion makes us do dumb things. In one study, researchers asked people to bid on tickets for a sold-out basketball game. When participants were told they’d have to pay in cash the next day, they offered about $28. But when another group was told they could pay with a credit card, their bids jumped to $60—more than double for the same tickets.

And here’s the kicker: these weren’t random people off the street. They were MBA students at a top business school—supposedly the best and brightest financial minds. If even they were tricked into spending twice as much because they’d be paying with credit instead of cash, it shows how easily debt can cloud judgment. If future financial experts can be so easily swayed, what does that say about the rest of us

And the worst part is, this doesn’t just hurt those who decided to pay by debt but even those who want to stay away from it because it raises prices for EVERYONE, without an increase in wages!!