Life Takes Visa?

WHATEVER

When this story caught my eye yesterday I assumed it was an April Fool’s Day prank, but apparently Hasbro and Visa have teamed up to replace the paper money used in the board game “Life” with a Visa-branded credit card. Players will swipe their Visa card through a “LifePod” to track every aspect of the game – both financial and other events such as buying stock or insurance, having kids, or winning a Nobel Prize. A Visa spokesperson defended the change by saying “You can't win the game without accumulating the most points. You can't accumulate the most points if you spend beyond your means.” Hmmm, that only makes me wonder if the game will allow you to spend beyond your means. Either way, it seems experts quoted in the article agree not only removes the games ability to teach kids valuable lessons about money, but is a shameless way to push credit cards on kids at younger and younger ages.

Credit cards are an inescapable part of modern life, although not on par with starting a family or winning a Nobel Prize. Why not include updates to prepare a kid for modern America’s other financial realities? Can you picture the look on young Johnny’s face when he pulls a game card that reads “Core inflation is 2.4 percent, in spite of the fact your health insurance premium just rose 12 percent, the cost of a house has doubled, and your real wages declined by 1.9%. So save for a retirement without Social Security.” That, my friends, would be a real life lesson.