I owe my soul to the company store

I'm currently skimming through Money Tree by Catherine Crook de Camp. It was published in 1972, but it has an interesting look at "the future," at least from a 1972 point of view. On p. 22, the author has a sample ad for a debt consolidation service. Aside from the different advertising language of the time, it is very similar to today's HELOC "debt consolidation" ads. Check it out:

Go for the…BIG MONEY!

You should have enough money to unify all your bills. Not just some of them. Enough to pay your taxes, too. And plenty of cash to do things you've had to put off. Make home improvements, get color TV, take a trip! Don't you agree it's time you had some real money in your hands to get all those bills off your back? Get your pen and get going now! Use the coupon [below] or phone xxx-xxx-xxxx.

I guess I was a bit misled about how credit has changed over the years. I thought that credit misuse was a recent occurrence, but it seems as though it's been going on for at least the last 30 years. As the saying goes, though, "There's nothing new under the sun." This kind of thing has probably been going on since the introduction of credit. It's like a new version of the old "company store," where the employee bought everything on credit from his employer and ended up owing more than he could ever hope to pay off.

Modern advertising doesn't help, either. In my psychology class last semester I did a bit of research into modern advertising techniques. It's amazing how much insight they can get into the mind of the subject of an advertising test just by analyzing his facial expressions. Not quite mind reading yet, but it's still spooky.