When it's in the mailbox, ornamenting the roadside and drenching most of our entertainment, it doesn't take long to recognize a labyrinthine media barrage promoting endless and conspicuous consumption. We are what we buy, and in a free market society where business doesn't always live by the golden rule, when others win when you lose, it's easy to find yourself burned. Often that burn comes by way of incinerating little pieces of hologram-emblazed plastic--using fake money like it's real.

Emmanuel Morales-Camargo is an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico with a Ph.D. in Finance. While his teaching areas include financial institutions and systems research, before he came to our fair state last year, Professor Morales-Camargo was the educational adviser to an organization at the University of Arizona that provides free personal finance education. He is also an aspiring author of a case study book on financial literacy. We put his money mind to use, extracting valuable information about how to deal with debt.