Meanwhile I've just been reading that the average nominal US interest rates on credit cards are now at 17% http://www.indexcreditcards.com/credit-card-rates-monitor/ although the CPI is supposedly running at 2% http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf so, applying the Fisher equation, the average real interest rate on the plastic money is now at 15%!
It looks to me like average US consumer interest rates (mortgages, car loans, general consumptive credit) are rising across the board, quite irrespective of Fed announcements and irrespective of economic conditions. The effect is, presumably, that the borrowing by Joe Average would slow down, since he cannot afford the loans so easily anymore. And indeed, the average credit card debt holding per household is decreasing, in the last years. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-hou sehold/ The average US household credit card debt is now said to be at $15,325 so then, on average, you would conclude the household must be nominally paying about $2,300 only on card interest, per year (!). That's approaching one net monthly salary for a young worker. No wonder Michael Hudson is getting puffed. All of this is difficult to explain credibly in terms of equilibrium economics, I think. J.
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