Have you seen the commercials where a customer fouls up a smoothly running retail store operation by deigning to pay with cash or check? A line of scowling customers and smirking employees endure the agony of waiting while this Cro-Magnon fishes out cash or scribbles her name, after which, the world resumes spinning merrily on it’s axis as customers gaily swipe their plastic check cards.

This brainwashing message is clear: Cash is icky.

Hasbro and Visa have taken this message to a new low, or rather, a lower age group, with their introduction of The Game of Life: Twists and Turns.  Life, the second most popular board game in the U.S., has replaced cash with plastic. The #1 board game, Monopoly, may not be far behind. A Visa card has already replaced cash in the European version.

Instead of cash, each player holds a colored Visa card the same size as a real debt card. When placed in an electronic pod, player data are stored. The role of banker has been eliminated – there’s no cash to meter out. The pod knows all.

Gone also is any opportunity to hone basic math skills or associate cash with… life.

In this version, the winner isn’t the player with the most money, but the most life points – a mixture of wealth and life experiences. And, yes, players can go into debt on the card -- I guess they call this life debt. It’s not too much of a stretch to see the analogy of life points to the rewards points given to adult debt-card users.

Visa and Hasbro say the game is educational... an opportunity for Mom or Dad to talk to kids about managing money, and that debt isn't a positive thing...  the same parents who bought this $35 game using a real Visa card.

Is it time to do some careful introspection about what we're exposing our kids to when it comes to the concept of money?

-------------------
Greg Moore is the Creator of the Wealth Building System
'DebtIntoWealth -- Lessons from My Journey to Debt Freedom'

  'I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel and this
    time it's not the train coming at me! My Debt-Free
   date for my $54000 is January 2010.  That's only 3
    years away!  Not bad for a single mom with no income
    but my own.' -- Dianne D., Texas.

Get LESSON 1 FREE now:
http://www.debtintowealth.com/stretcher.html

That is just disturbing. I'll be sure to care for our games since I like the paper money.

I was browsing through the baby aisle looking for sippy cups when I found a plastic baby toy...a chewable credit/debit card!!  Good grief.

Brandy:

I was browsing through the baby aisle looking for sippy cups when I found a plastic baby toy...a chewable credit/debit card!!  Good grief.

You have got to be making this up! 

I wish. It was a pink rubber credit card and I found it at Dollar World. I thought about buying it just to show others how outrageous things have gotten but you know, spending a $1 just to say "see how sad things are and what people would buy" seemed a very silly thing to do.

I can't find the toy I saw but here are some that I did turn up....

A toy gas station with credit card swiper 

Bank of Bratz..someone has lost their minds on Ebay 

Bling Bling Money, at least they have cash with that gold card 

But I can not find the toy I saw at Dollar World. I think it was made by Baby King.