4. There are too some disadvantages inhering in Credit. This admitted fact makes no valid argument against the use and extension of it; because there are disadvantages connected with all human devices whatever,--with all means contrived to reach earthly ends--and even a child may discover many of these; some objections lie against everything, and against everybody, and the practical question always is, Which preponderates, the good or the evil? In respect to Credit there can be no doubt, that the good outweighs the evil many fold; still, in accordance with the purpose in this book of both writer and readers to look on both sides of each significant point in Economics, we will now give attention to the chief disadvantages inhering in the nature of Credit. (1) In the first place, when credit is much given by dealers to ordinary retail buyers, the reverse results take place from those but just now characterized as happening under bank credits, namely, capital passes out from the hands of productive operators into hands less able and less willing to use it in further production. Indeed, in most such cases it ceases to be capital, and is expended in immediate gratification. It is much easier for the average man of fair character within the present customs of Society to "get trusted" than to pay "as he goes." Such a man is even called "easy-going." He almost always over-estimates his resources for the future, and under-estimates his obligations at the present. It is always a disadvantage in the long outlook for both parties when such men easily and largely "get trusted." Let us take a sample case: when an industrious artisan or efficient merchant has given credit for six months or a year to dilatory customers, it is so much withdrawn for so long a time from his active capital; and in order to make up his consequent loss of profit to the average and expected rate, there must be an addition to the prices of his wares sold to other parties; and, besides, some bad debts belong to such a system, and there must be additional prices somewhere to compensate for this; and thus the customers who pay promptly bear a part of the burden of the delinquents, who at least do not wholly escape, inasmuch as they ultimately (if they pay at all) pay a price enhanced by their own delay. Thus, if the current and expected profit on his capital be 12%, and the artisan or merchant sells and gets returns four times a year on the average, something less than 3% profit may be charged to each article on the average; while if he only gets returns at the end of the year, at best 12% must be put on everything at the average, and in reality considerably more, because of the bad debts that stick like a burr to that way of doing business. Hence the excellent maxim, "Quick sales and small profits."