[–] BowtieDog 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
Lurker here, I rarely comment but fuck it.
I live in Houston, work is closely related to the oil and gas industry. Rising credit card debt is because so many people got laid off from the oil slump. Every 2 or 3 weeks a new round of firings in in the local Houston news. Apartment rents are dropping cause people can't afford them and we're all pretty sure Texas is going to go into a recession. The shale boom is pretty much decimated, and there are hardly any more fracking rigs running in Texas. A couple hundred versus several thousand a few years ago.
There isn't a lot of confidence anywhere in Texas really. Medical industry is doing ok but it's dwarfed by oil and gas. These guys are stupid and didn't do any research.
tl;dr I live in Texas, oil and gas is getting slaughtered, people use credit cards to help pay for shit when jobless. No, not optimistic.
[–] 4561631? 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
If every person on the planet had a credit card, then they would each need to have 140 USD on their CC. I usually keep mine below $500.
I doubt every person has a credit card, but it does make me wonder about the top 1-5% that are raising the average debt.
[–] OcculusResurrectio 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
But not everyone has the same amount. I actually have about $16,000 in credit card debt. Its on 0% promo rates for a while so I'm not paying interest.
[–] YallJusRaycis ago
There's about 10 to 20 thousand dollars left in the system. Hurry up and book your cruise before some dick snatches it up.
[–] issueninja ago
By keeping interest rates at artificial lows for an indefinite period, government has encouraged people to borrow a lot of money for bad reasons. This is why we never had a real recovery after the last recession. The government keeps distorting the capital allocation system.