Dave Ramsey's Non Sequitur Financial Advice

Positions that might seem or even be extreme are sometimes correct.  The comparative or perceived intensity of an idea is never an automatic indicator of truth or falsity, but some extremes can attract attention far more easily than truths.  Perhaps this is why some of Dave Ramsey's ideas about personal finance have been accepted by listeners.  Dave Ramsey is a popular financial advisor whom many evangelical Christian circles are familiar with, so to deconstruct his claims is to hold up yet another asinine ideology associated with evangelicals to the light of reason.

One of the most renowned parts of Dave Ramsey's philosophy of personal finance is his universal or near-universal disdain for credit cards, which he regards as an enslaving, overpowering force that will drive almost anyone into debt from overspending.  He encourages credit card users to cut up their cards and switch to exclusively using cash or debit cards.  While committing blatant logical fallacies, he asserts that there is some inherent emotional connection to using cash that will inevitably help people avoid making at least some unnecessary purchases.

For some people, feeling and seeing bills or coins might be all the deterrence they need to avoid overspending.  For others, whether due to intelligence, self-control, a simple lack of desire, or any combination of these factors, using credit cards poses no threat to their financial security.  Even in the cases of people who use credit cards to the point of incurring gratuitous debt, it is never the credit cards that are the problem, but the way they are being handled by their owners.  The latter facts are the ones Dave Ramsey denies or ignores.

Credit cards even offer rewards that most debit cards do not, which can be an incentive to use credit cards within one's means rather than using cash.  Using cash simply depletes one's supply of cash; using credit cards can help a person strategically make necessary purchases while returning a portion of their spent money back.  If one has both options available and there is no tendency to abuse credit cards, there is no reason to use cash other than pure preference!  It is pragmatically superior to use credit cards in such a scenario.

Dave Ramsey is merely overreacting to some people's weaknesses by discouraging all credit card use in favor of cash or debit cards--but mostly cash.  In doing do, he commits non sequitur fallacies by appealing to slippery slope errors and extrapolating from one person to another.  Neither slippery slopes nor extrapolating psychological traits and struggles is a sound way to approach any subject.  A framework of personal finances that demonizes credit cards is irrational because no framework is sound when assumes something to be positive or negative.