There is a saying, long associated with religious cults, that the way to achieve long term growth is to “Catch them while they’re young”.
There is another cult, a secular one, that is increasingly adopting this practice.
This cult’s god is money. Their name? The Merchants of Debt.
From today’s Sunday Telegraph (p. 18 print edition, no online link):
Banking scheme an earner
STATE schools are pocketing thousands of dollars a year in commissions by signing children up to saving accounts.
Tuggerah Public School, Bonnett Bay, Illawong and Turramurra are some of the 3,416 schools which participate in the Commonwealth Bank School Banking program which earns schools $5 commission for every account opened and 5 per cent of the total weekly deposits.
NSW schools earned $500,000 through the scheme last year.
Now, consider this: why would a bank pay a higher rate (5%) in commissions to attract new domestic savings – which are not really “new” at all, since kids mostly get their money to “save” via their parents’ savings – than they are paying for term deposits, or, what it would cost them to borrow wholesale funds from overseas?
A Commonwealth Bank spokesman said the program gave schools an easy and fun way to help kids gain a basic understanding of money management skills.
So it’s an act of corporate generosity, is it? To “help kids” learn how to manage money?
Does the CBA help kids gain a basic understanding of what money is – that 97% of all “money” is debt? Of course not.
“Commission earned can be used for computers, books, sporting equipment or anything else the school may need,” he said.
If it really is corporate charity, then why not just give schools the money for those things – no strings or “schemes” attached?
Obviously, that would offer no direct benefit to the bank.
No, what this really is, is a long term, “catch ’em while they’re young” acquisition strategy.
A marketing campaign:
“It is completely voluntary and there is no recent external marketing of the program.”
I am sure that I am not the only one who perceives the subtle, defensive smokescreen wafting through the CBA spokesman’s words.
Something to hide, ‘eh?
Like, an ulterior motive?
Imagine how much easier (and cheaper) it would be in future, to offer sell student loans, credit debt cards, personal loans, car loans, and mortgage loans to Australia’s future young adults, if you can find ways to capture their “customer” details while they are still kiddies. And “help” them establish a habit, a mind-set, a “customer relationship” with your bank, while they’re still young and impressionable.
Before some other Merchant of Debt gets to them first.
Barnaby Is Right 
“97% of all “money” is debt? Of course not.”
Would it therefore be correct to say that loans create deposits?
Exactly. See my previous posts on this eg, The World’s Most Immoral Institution Tells You How. It is called “endogenous money” – loans create deposits, and only after (much after, often 12 months or more) do banks seek “reserves” to meet regulatory requirements re capital reserves. Prof Steve Keen wrote a great technical article on this some years ago – The Roving Cavaliers Of Credit.
The author of this website talks about interest free loans. But is that not the issuance of money as a debt and not merely as a form of exchange?
In my mind the end result of ones sweat is the real wealth.
http://binaryeconomics.net/binary-economics
Yes my dad did teach me this valuable lesson. Didn’t really help though the dollarmite account was just too appealing. It’s the “get them young, get them for life philsophy” combined with inertia marketing. Ingenious
To emphasise my point that money should not be issued as a debt,interest or no interest Proverbs 22:7 says – “The borrower is servant to the lender.” and Romans 13:8 says – “Owe no one anything…”
However Romans 13:7 says “Give everyone their due……” and goes on to mention taxes which appears to be a contradiction. But Moultons Greek Lexicon translates the Greek word translated in Bibles as taxes, as “forum” which means a market place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum
I am sure that you will find what is written in the links below to very interesting. I don’t have any other means of contact so I’ve put them here.
Click to access Marr-Text-English.pdf
http://pragmaticwitness.com/noahide-laws-and-decapitation-for-confessing-jesus-is-lord/