The Average Citizen Ponders, "And I Had To Cut Up My Visa?":
So let's say you're the average 19 year-old male off at college. Part of the deal of being away from home for the first time is Dad wants you to have some security, so he gives you a credit card. You don't know it, but it's got a high limit. And your family has taught you how to be good with your finances - not wasting your money, but spending wisely. Your first year, you were really good. You went off to Big State U with a lot of money you'd saved from working hard for a couple of summers, but you burned through that pretty fast, even though you were only living in the dorm. Hell, though, your parents think, you did need to spread your wings, get that amped up computer, that Xbox, all those hard drives for the MP3s you downloaded, that poster of Anna Kournikova. And you needed to socialize - get out and meet other guys, drinking, even though it's illegal, but, shit, you're young, away at school, who needs to worry?

It's your sophomore year now. And, worse, you've got a girlfriend. So when it's time to get tickets to that Weezer concert ('cause Rivers makes your girl sooo fucking hot), you break out Dad's credit card. Oh, sure, you get a stomach ache the first time you do it, but you figure you've got that job at the campus bookstore that'll pay for it. When you get to Weezer, the girl (let's be cute and call her Conneo) has to have the t-shirt and she'd fuck your brains out for the tour guide, and you're thinkin', well, okay, I suppose, if it means pussy. So you break out the card again. And it hurts a little, but suddenly, after the show, when Conneo says she'd like you to Cuomo rivers all over her tits, you figure it was well worth it.

Now the dam has broken. Man, you become the life of the fuckin' party. For a month. You're buying the fried cheese appetizers at Chili's, you're gettin' cash advances to front the weed and keg money for the party. Shit, it's like you are the First National Bank of Who the Fuck Cares. For a month. Then Dad opens the bill. Party over.

Except you are one smart son of a bitch. You've been wandering campus, pickin' up free t-shirts, mugs, and 2 liter Pepsis because you've been fillin' out credit card applications like so many postcards from oblivion. And those cards are pourin' in. Motherfuckin' three Visas, two Mastercharges, and even a Discover card. You tell yourself you've learned your lessons - that you'll only use them in emergencies. And besides, minimum payments are easy. And, shit, student loans are simply to get. "Fuck, yeah, man. Conneo, we're eatin' steak tonight," you say, and into your new cell phone, you tell your Dad, "Don't worry. I'll be able to pay off that card in the summer."

You get it? You get the fucking analogy here? You understand how if we behaved like the Bush Adminstration and lived on budgets that would drive nails in to the coffin of our debt, we'd've been forced to live on crackers, ketchup, and government beans for the rest of our lives?