When Plastic Gets Toxic

David Lazarus reports in the San Francisco Chronicle on credit card debt in the US.

Meanwhile, the nation's credit card debt has soared to $735 billion, or almost $7,000 per household. Of this sum, the American Bankers Association said that a record 4.09 percent of card payments were past due in the third quarter of 2003, up from 4.04 percent in the previous three months. The association said this reflects a rising number of unemployed people using their plastic to get by.

A closer look at the Federal Reserve's latest monthly release of consumer credit outstanding shows that growth in revolving credit has been essentially flat for the last couple of months and, in fact, declined slightly in November (the most recent reporting period).