Saturday, September 09, 2006

Tapped?

AP (09.09.06):
"Americans increased their borrowing in July at the slowest pace in four months as the gain in credit card debt fell off sharply. The slowdown was led by a sharp deceleration in credit card debt, which rose by just 3.4 percent in July after gains of 13.2 percent in June and 13 percent in May." Consumer Borrowing Slows in July
Why? Could be because some of the folks who bought real estate with those goofy ARMs and interest-only money have already burned up their credit cards to cover their new mortgage payments. Why don't they fall back on their savings? Ha! Ain't got none. From Calculated Risk, one of the best out there for this kind of info: "The savings rate for July [2006] was negative 0.9%. This is the sixteenth consecutive month of negative savings." Fear not though. We're still in hock up to our eyeballs. "The increases [in borrowing] left consumer credit at a record level of $2.35 trillion."

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