Americans Just Went on a $32 Billion Credit Card Shopping Spree

Americans Just Went on a $32 Billion Credit Card Shopping Spree

Credit cards are pictured in a wallet in Washington, February 21, 2010. REUTERS/Stelios Varias
© Stelios Varias / Reuters
By Millie Dent

Americans may be heading for another credit card crunch. After paying down almost $35 billion in credit card debt in the first quarter of the year, consumer charged up a storm in the second quarter, racking up $32.1 billion in new debt, according to CardHub, a credit card comparison site. CardHub says that’s the second highest quarterly total since it began keeping data on credit card debt in 2009.

While that buying binge could potentially signal improved confidence in the economy and in their own financial prospects, CardHub warns that the debt risks are building. It projects that consumers will close out the year with an annual net increase of more than $60 billion in credit card debt, with the total credit card debt outstanding climbing to more than $900 billion, the highest since the recession.

Related: 5 Cities with the Most Credit Card Debt

CardHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou says that jump brings Americans “perilously close to a tipping point at which balances become unsustainable and delinquency rates skyrocket.”

For 7 out of the past 10 quarters, consumers have racked up more debt than they’ve paid off. Papadimitriou cites that as evidence that consumers are going back to the bad habits they had before the economic downturn.

CardHub based its study on data from the Federal Reserve, and if the results are a sign of trouble then another new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that problem is even worse than it looks.  In a report called “Do We Know What We Owe,” the New York Fed found that people widely underestimate their credit card debt, telling the Fed’s survey-takers that it’s about 37 percent lower than what lenders say it is.

So if we are actually getting to a tipping point with credit card debt, it may be even closer than we realize.

Top Reads From The Fiscal Times

Comcast to Cut the Cord with Time Warner

A Comcast sign is shown on the side of a vehicle in San Francisco, California February 13, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
© Robert Galbraith / Reuters
By Alexander Rader

Comcast is dropping its merger with Time Warner after a year of regulatory pushback, according to Bloomberg. The news wire's unnamed sources say there will be an announcement tomorrow.

In today's changing media landscape it is not really clear what the preemptive breakup of a media megacorp (formed from mere media titans) will mean for consumers, especially in the face of Verizon's push to slim down its bundled offerings, the new ala carte service from HBO and the continued expansion of Netflix's original programming. As more and more people cut the cord, the market for traditional cable TV is eroding, and more consumers opt simply for an Internet connection.

Even without that, Comcast dropping its deal probably will have no impact at all for the average cable subscriber, given the already segregated monopolies allowed individual cable companies. So, unless you own stock in either of these companies, this is pretty much just more status quo in a rapidly changing market.

Can Low Self-Control Turn You Into Edward Snowden?

REUTERS/Bobby Yip
By Jacqueline Leo

Be very wary if your employer asks you to take a test and then says please put on this cap. The cap could have sensors measuring your “self-control,” which researchers at Iowa State University have connected to—cybersecurity.

Yup—this wasn’t about eating the last cookie, having sex with a stranger, or taking a hit from some unknown new drug just because your friend said it was an amazing experience. The test measures how long someone hesitates before doing something risky or wrong.

Hmm.  Maybe I’ll wait a few seconds before robbing that jewelry store! If they waited, the researchers determined that the employees were considering the consequences of their actions and therefore had higher self-control than those who simply filled their duffle bag with whatever bling was in sight. 

Those with higher self-control were deemed better cyber security risks than the low self-control group.

But who knows?  Maybe the high group was just casing the joint and calculating how much they could carry without getting caught. Or maybe they were searching for the largest unflawed diamond in the case that could be hidden in their pocket!

So much for brainwaves.

These Students Are Making Even More Than They Expect After Graduation

By Beth Braverman

College students who major in STEM fields generally know that they can make more money than their peers once they graduate, but they don’t know how much more.

Turns out, those students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math, actually have starting salaries that are higher than expected, according to a new report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Engineering majors, for example, expect to earn $56,000, but actually receive 15.5 percent more than that, with starting salaries average nearly $65,000. Computer Science majors expect to make around $51,000, but receive 22 percent for an average starting salary of $62,000.

Chemistry majors have the largest gap between expectations and reality: They expect to earn an average of $39,000 but take home an average $58,000 in their first year, a 51 percent increase.

Related: The Closing of the Millennial Mind on Campus

The typical college graduate in 2014 received a starting salary of $48,000. Liberal arts and humanities majors had the lowest starting salary, with an average of just $39,000, according to NACE.

Not only do STEM majors enjoy higher salaries, but they can also expect more job security and better job prospects. All of the top 25 jobs recently compiled by U.S. News and World Report fell into either a science- or math-based discipline.

Still, not everyone has the interest or aptitude to excel in a STEM career. A third of those who begin their college career majoring in those fields end up transferring to a difference study area, according to a recent report by RTI International.

Will Obama Send a Smoke Signal About Weed?

Illinois Senate approves marijuana for medical uses
Reuters
By Ciro Scotti

The resignation of Michele M. Leonhart, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, just one day after 4/20 -- which is sort of Thanksgiving for stoners -- offers President Obama an opportunity to replace her with someone who shares his relatively benign view of marijuana.

The right appointment might also be a gift to Hillary Rodham Clinton since it would signal to younger voters that it's not just libertarian-leaning Republicans like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky who want to decriminalize the use of pot.

Representative Early Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, told The New York Times that Obama should appoint someone who "understands the federal approach to marijuana isn't working."

Related: How to Stop Cyber Attacks: Let Workers Smoke Pot

The flashpoint that led to the departure of Leonhart after a 35-year career at the D.E.A. was a congressional hearing that revealed agency agents in Colombia had taken part in parties with prostitutes paid by drug cartels. But Leonhart, who has lumped marijuana in with crack, meth and heroin, found herself at odds with the President, who has called pot no more dangerous than alcohol.

“Hopefully this is a sign that the Reefer Madness era is coming to an end at the D.E.A.,” Mason Tvert, the director on communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, told Bloomberg Politics.

How to Stop Cyber Attacks: Let Workers Smoke Pot

An Initiative To Legalize Marijuana In California To Appear On Nov. Ballot
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Jackie Leo

What’s true for the government is true for business. FBI Director James Comey thinks you can’t hire top tech talent with a ban on weed. It all started in the Reagan administration, which imposed a no-hire policy for applicants who toked up within the past three years. Good luck with that.

In 2014, Comey raised the issue during a speech: “A lot of the nation’s top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana. I have to hire a great workforce to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.”

That’s not the only reason the government can’t hire competent programmers and white hat hackers.  They come at a high price, there’s a shortage, and they hate red tape and bureaucratic annoyances.  For some lawmakers, though, it’s easier to get lost in the weed than try to reform the federal hiring process.  That’s why Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) have two proposals in the House requiring info from the intelligence director on how classifying pot as Schedule 1 narcotic crimps the feds recruiting efforts.