Broke

“Teach your children credit responsibility while playing the game.” Such is the uber-current pitch of the Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition. No need to consult The Street or the Fed: This decidedly millennial transactional “game” illuminates the state of the American economy with more guts and accuracy than CNBC, Bernanke, and the Wall Street Journal combined.

Monopoly has since 1935 been popular in that kid-tested, parent-approved way. It’s a fun game, of course, but on top of that it’s allowed children a glimpse at money in all its facets: investing, spending, saving, earning, risk-taking, and leveraging. Kids were receptive to these lessons in currency because they could touch the money, they could see it grow and dwindle, they felt the bittersweetness of handing it over in exchange for hotels or property.

Now, with the Electronic Banking Edition, kids will be infected with the disease that has crippled our household budgets and asphyxiated our national economy. People - kids and adults - benefit from experiencing money. When we spend, we need to access our senses. We need to hear the shuffle of paper as we count; we need to visualize the difference between having and not having - and no swipe of a card can suffice.

Money means something different today than it did a few years ago. “Affording” something is determined by whether a machine will accept a transaction; this mentality has resulted in a nation of robotic card-carriers poised for the next swipe.

The Monopoly promo says it best: The game “capitalizes on today’s trend of a cashless society.” And that’s what I call morally bankrupt.

From Mandewilkes.com