Prior to the 20th century debt was looked upon as evil and only used by people with poor character. Following World War II the use of consumer credit became more common. In the mid 1970's the nation's consumer debt was approximately 8 billion dollars. Today there is a whole generation of people who have grown up using credit cards and our present consumer debt is approaching 900 Billion dollars most of which has accrued through use or misuse of credit cards. Proverbs states correctly that the when it comes to debt the "borrower is the slave of the lender".