|
Video: Why is Credit Card Use Up? |
|
|
|
Contributed by J. R. Ransom
|
 Jim Jubek Jim Jubak, the Webs #1 investing columnist, Video (1min 40sec): Why is Credit Card Use Up? "If you listen only to the credit card companies recently, you'd think the US economy is going gang-busters. Mastercard came out and said that they'd seen an increase of almost 9% in credit card purchases over the last year. American Express came out and said they'd seen a 14% increase in credit card purchases.
"But the economy isn't going gang-busters. Growth is about 1%, maybe a little more, over this time period. So, what's going on? Well unfortunately what seems to be going on is that people are putting more and more of their daily purchases on their credit cards. As the price of gasoline goes up, as the price of food goes up, as the price of just about everything goes up, people are putting more and more of their daily expenses on their credit cards as a way to bridge the gap between those rising prices and basically stagnant family incomes.
"So rather than this being a sign of good health for the economy, this is a sign that the economy is in trouble..."
|