As the American blessing of credit cards became widespread, so did the American curse of debt.
The new cards are widespread in Europe, and some globetrotting Americans have complained that their cards don't always work overseas.
There was, for example, the reported distribution of false voter ID cards and widespread underage voting around the town of Borama near the Ethiopian border, home territory of President Dahir Riyale Kahin.
No doubt there will be some benefits: fraud, in particular the persistent and increasingly annoying problem of identity theft, might be substantially reduced if biometric-identification systems, introduced in the form of passports, visas and identity cards, become widespread.
(In Europe, where telecom is expensive and credit cards less widespread, smart cards are a hit already).
Created in the early 1920s by a surprisingly attractive Swiss man named Hermann Rorschach, the set of 10 cards gained widespread popularity with clinical psychologists by the 1940s, becoming as synonymous with the field as leather sofas and bespectacled white guys in sweater vests.
This would give emojis their green card for widespread use outside of Japan.
But that equally means that playing the card of widespread availability is not good enough in relation to the Prince Harry photographs either, particularly when the public interest points that arise from the Las Vegas holiday do not depend on sight of the photographs.
Smart cards are in widespread use throughout Europe, much more so than the "dumb" plastic cards common in the United States.
The news last month that Bank of America was planning to add a $5 monthly fee for some accountholders who use debit cards set off widespread outrage from the bank's customers.
