"Gimme" some credit

Credit- the granting of a loan and the creation of debt. It is any form of deferred payment.

Yesterday I was watching the noon news and they have a segment on Wednesdays called Money Talks.  What an understatement that is!  I have had this credit conversation with my kids, my husband and friends.......more than once.  Good credit is earned and boy do you have to work hard.  Nothing about good credit makes any sense these days.  I have stressed to them that it is more important to pay on time then to pay all of what you might owe, even if it's less than the minimum due.  If you owe $50 and you only have $30....PAY the $30 and PAY IT ON TIME... Your credit report sees your attentiveness to paying on time than even more than your ability to pay what you owe.  I cannot stress enough how confusing the credit world is.  If you have a line of credit for $10,000, your credit shows you virtually OWE that $10K even if in actuality you only have used $1500 of that 10K.  The credit companies see that you have the potential at any second to spend that extra $8500. That available money is yours for the taking. 
So back to yesterday's show. The financial guru was explaining that there are two ways to hurt your credit. One is assuming more credit (Leroy, like the needless Sears card you just acquired to save 15% on socks and shorts) or closing accounts that you don't use.
The credit world is counting on us to override everything we've been taught. It makes perfect sense to ditch cards you don't need and therefore alleviating the urge to charge something. They're literally banking on us to NOT understand.  Now, if you think that's complicated, listen to the one way we can HELP our credit rating.  If you have a line of credit for $1000 and have used nearly all of it, ask if you can UP your credit line "to say, $3000.00" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT?  Your debt ratio will then be less because you actually have used substantially less than you have available... ( you now will owe only 33% of what is available to you rather than nearly 100%) Looks great on paper..after all,  we all know that 33 is less than 100. But wait again.... You now have that extra $3K available to use so your "in debt" for 3k more.... vicious cycle eh?
The sad part of this entire saga is that the rules keep changing and we will never fully understand them all... and even sadder is that fact that they're counting on just that!!