Have Americans been fooled into believing that a three-digit number defines our real success? It is time to dig deeper into the FICO score to understand what that number really tells us. In 1956, Bill Fair, an engineer, and Earl Isaac, a mathematician, started a business called the Fair, Isaac, and Company (FICO). After only two years of starting the company, they built their first credit scoring system for American investments. In 1981, FICO introduced its first FICO credit bureau risk score, but it did not debut until 1989 and has since become the powerhouse of credit reporting. That’s right; the almighty credit score is just over 30 years old, which means it could be younger than you. Now let’s keep digging to see exactly what makes up this mighty number. Notice anything odd about the makeup of the credit score everyone so heavily depends on to determine how likely you are to repay? The FICO score does not look at how much savings you have and the trajectory of time it took to...