It's simply a piece of plastic that allows you to purchase items without carrying (much) cash...but to make that purchase with cash you already really have in your bank account rather than cash you don't yet have (and might not have very soon). In other words, it isn't "deficit spending" to generate interest charges, which seems to be the main idea behind marketing credit cards to a self-indulgent public.

On that basis the bank card seems like a reasonably sensible idea to me, LEJ...far more sensible than credit cards. It doesn't allow you to engage in momentary-impulse deficit spending, and most people would be better off if they didn't do that, wouldn't they?

The whole idea behind credit cards is to entice a lot of people into spending more than they can pay back on time...then hitting them for big interest charges. Corporate loan sharks, in other words. That very system generates more money out of thin air (when the interest charges are assigned on top of the principle) and that creates continuing inflation of the national currency by artificially enlarging the money supply. It also encourages the general public to lose control of their finances.

They want the public to be as irresponsible as the government is.... ;-)

The final result: Almost everyone gets financially f*cked, but a very few people get incredibly rich! Sounds like adventure capitalism to me. ;-) If you play Monopoly, the same thing happens as the game progresses to its inevitable conclusion...only on a much simpler level, because there are only a few players involved.