If I needed $750 more than I had in the bank, and knew I could pay it all back in a month, I would put some of my expenses on plastic. Back when I was fresh ou

If I needed $750 more than I had in the bank, and knew I could pay it all back in a month, I would put some of my expenses on plastic. Back when I was fresh out of school in a not-very-well-paying job, and had recently completed a debt management plan to pay off the bills I had run up as an undergrad, I got plenty of unsolicited offers for credit cards; eventually I had something like a total credit line over $10K with interest in the 20–25% range. So who are these people out there who “need” short-term credit so badly, and yet can’t find anyone to loan to them at anything short of quadruple-interest rates? Is it really good for society to have a company fill this “need”? (Just to forestall flag-waving about contracts between consenting adults being sacred: The banking system, without which easy credit would be impossible, is even more dependent on the state than other kinds of private industry. As the de facto lender of last resort, the state has a legitimate interest in what kinds of lending it permits among its citizens.)