When I say "credit", you think of . . .

Yesterday I faced the familiar question at a checkout line: credit or debit? These days I suppose you could be more proud of using a debit card than a credit card. It would be like saying: "I don't have to pay later, I have the money for this purchase right now. I'm a responsible budgeter." But it used to be the other way around.

In the 1970s, (in Canada at least, where I used to live), debit cards came out specifically for people who were either so young or such poor money managers, that they couldn't get credit. Yes, there was a time before this credit crunch when financiers were picky about who they gave credit to. You couldn't get a card if you didn't work full-time and have a good relationship with a bank. You couldn't get a card if you recently screwed up. Back then, when you told the clerk you were paying with credit, you could be proud that a bank thought you were responsible enough to be trusted with a card.

And before that, it used to be the other way around again. Credit was for losers after the Great Depression. That era ended for my parents when they bought their first home in 1952. My father told the bank proudly that he never had any credit. He always paid in full.

"If you never had any credit, how do you expect to get a mortgage?" The banker asked him. Dad was forced to get a Shell Gas charge card to be able to qualify for the home loan.

And before that . . . well, I learned on PBS the other day that lending first became a big business in Europe in the 1600s in Venice. But, lending at usury was seen as a sin, so those of Christian heritage were forbidden to do it.