Americans are piling on debt at a furious pace, as tariffs loom
Americans’ collective credit-card bill stands at $1.2 trillion, a more than 7% increase from the same point one year earlier.PER MARKETWATCH......would link it,behind paywall
And there are hundreds of millions of people living in these United States. Tens of millions of them deciding to forego other spending in order to witness what might be the last total eclipse of the sun in their lifetime, or to expose their children to the magnificence of the natural world at an early age, or simply to put their worries on hold for a few days and be happy, isn't an indication that these people are not one paycheck or one accident away from financial ruin.
HA is pretty close to on the target with this one . . . credit cards have gone from being a bridge that allows one to buy today, for Christmas, or a vacation, or to fix a car, and pay it back over the span of a few months to being a lifeline that allows them to keep the electricity and heat on and food in the fridge for the next few months as they endure the devastating impact of inflation on their expenses with no real gains in wages over the last 4 years. What they were planning on paying back has simply carried over from month to month as the additions of the necessities has been added to the existing balance.
In one of my few divergences from the government shouldn't be regulating things is that there should be a rational fixed maximum allowed to be added to whatever base rate the issuer is using on a credit card. The current rates are nothing short of usury. And while I may disagree with capping the total rate to 10%, which was one of Trump's campaign promises, I can see where capping the allowable rate to something between 10% and 15% above the base rate used would be beneficial overall. Not only as a protection for those who are borrowing, but also as a means of preventing the issuance of unsecured credit in amounts that will only end up harming the borrowers when the defaults start rolling in during challenging economic times.
