Age of the Plastic Culture!

This is the Age of the Credit Cards, an Age of the "Plastic Culture".

Anyhow, the rate of credit card circulation shows that it’s easier than ever to subscribe to the “Plastic Culture” and the figures correspond also to the aggressive promotions and marketing campaigns by these credit card companies for the past few years. These companies will do anything, almost anything to get you to own their cards.

And the best part of the whole section is here - the rate of Bankruptcies caused by the “Plastic Overdose”.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 1--The number of Malaysians declaring personal bankruptcy surged 47 percent between 2001 and 2004 to figures more than double those seen during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, a report said Sunday, AFP reported.

Deputy Finance Minister Ng Yen Yen said bankruptcy cases rose to 16,251 cases in 2004 from 11,065 in 2001.
Even though the debt threshold for bankruptcy was increased from 10,000 ringgit to 30,000 in 2003, the finance ministry data still showed an rise in cases, Ng said.

“We are not even enduring bad times now. This is not good and it (the trend) must be stopped,“ she was quoted as saying by the Sunday Star newspaper.

Ng said even during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, there were only 7,396 bankruptcy cases.
Statistics showed that 11 percent of the people became bankrupt because of non-payment of credit card debt while 8 percent of the bankrupts were between the ages of 20 and 30, she said.

“This is serious because by right, no person under 35-years should be a bankrupt,“ the minister said.
Ng said the government was turning to education and improving awareness on how to contain overspending to prevent a further rise in financial failures.

Research showed a direct link between credit card use and the bankruptcy rate among those aged between 20 and 30, said T. Indrani, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations.