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Just when you thought credit card debt had settled into a new range, refusing to grow, bang, a record high.
In fact, purchases leaped in October by 15.5% month on month:
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Repayments increased by the same amount, however, suggesting no greater hunger for new debt but perhaps suggesting more willingness to spend, though on what I don’t know. Retail sales fell in the month. Perhaps it’s just a big, fat increase in credit card arbitrage as mortgages expand a bit more.
About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
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