America’s Torrid Affair with Credit Cards

 Americans love to buy stuff they can’t afford and don’t have the money for.  Our government is the perfect role model of buying things they don’t have the money for.  And the citizens of this country have followed by example.

Check out this paragraph from an article about credit debt and notice the word “ever” being used.  As long time readers will know, we pay attention to articles that use the word “never” and “ever”.

*************************

This decline is remarkable because, for the past three years, credit card borrowing has been on a tear. From April 2021 to May 2024, revolving consumer debt jumped from $971bn to $1.35tn. That’s a 39 per cent increase over just three years, the largest increase ever to the highest level ever.

All this borrowing hasn’t come cheap. In the mid-1990s, the Federal Reserve began measuring the average rate paid across all US credit card accounts. Over the past year consumers have been borrowing at the highest rates ever recorded.

https://www.ft.com/content/b60117dd-fe72-47cb-abaf-9020be424413