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Credit card
A History of the World in 100 Objects
The Black Strip: The Hero or the Villain of Credit Cards
The spread of a wide range of financial transactions has created transnational institutions bigger than the ability of national security. Credit cards do something that was never possible before: They allow ordinary people to borrow at relatively low cost, avoiding both the pawnbroker and the loan shark. The shopper holick is our equivalent of the old-fashioned spendthrift and wasterel. Flashing the plastic would certainly figure in any modern rakes progress. All the Abrahamic religions have worried about the social evils of usury, the charging of interest. To the scathing words of the Quran, those that live on usury shall rise up before God like men whom Satan has demented by his touch.
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