Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance) (NYTimes.com). A new payment option for online games lets minors of any age purchase virtual nothings on credit—without a parent's involvement. It's real money and real credit, but in a closed system of virtual objects so the game companies do not incur significant loss if debt is not repaid. Kids can repay their debts with their parent's credit card, or they can carry their own cash allowance and a printed payment receipt to any 7-11 store.

A good way to teach kids about credit, or an unabashedly evil way to get kids to spend more money online? Online games with paid upgrades are already dangerously close to gambling, and the last thing I want is less parental involvement.

But I could warm up to the idea of kids spending real money on virtual garbage. Other than depriving them of experience with money, the alternative is kids spending real money on real garbage, and then that garbage has to live in my house.