This Time is Different

Just a short post with a 150 word essay I wrote for a scholarship.  The prompt was "the importance of Having Good Credit"

Credit, as a tool, is a promise: for hope today, a return tomorrow.
Credit, as a score, is a reputation: for promises yesterday, your faith today.
At least this was how it is supposed to work, but a rapidly inflating housing bubble made us look the other way.  No Income, No Job or Asset (NINJA) loans were lent, with no regard for reputation or promise.  “This Time is Different”, they told us.  And we, in our fervor, listened.
If only it were different, if only our house prices could, like Dorothy’s house, defy gravity.  Only after the crisis did we realize otherwise.
Never again, we now tell ourselves.  And so the recent crisis reminded us of why good credit matters.  It is a promise in which harbors the hope for tomorrow, so that the future can truly be different, and so prosperity be truly sustained.