What Americans owe on their credit cards

What do Americans owe on their credit cards? A huge aggregate amount that constitutes a ticking time bomb that could further devastate the economy. Here are the details, from Consumeraffairs.com:

Average bankcard borrower debt, defined as the aggregate balance on all bank-issued credit cards for an individual bankcard borrower, inched upward nationally 0.82 percent to $5,776 from the previous quarter's $5,729, and 4.09 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008. The highest state average bankcard debt remains in Alaska at $7,476, followed by Tennessee at $6,869 and Nevada at $6,677.

This is per individual bankcard borrower. For the average debt of a married couple, then, double the average amount. The same site reports that the number of consumers who are three or more months behind on their credit card payments is up 11 percent over the same period from 2008.

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Democrats: not the party for economic reform

In an article titled, "The Trouble with Democrats," William Greider of The Nation documents the many ways in which the democrats lack the moral will to rein in predatory lending and enact real economic reform. How about modestly adjusting the bankruptcy code to allow 1.5 million people to keep their houses? Forget it. How about capping payday loans at 35%? No way. You see, most Democrats are scared of payday lenders unless the interest cap is 390%. How about putting meaningful rate caps on credit cards? No way, because the financial services industry doesn't want that. This article is a thoroughly disgusting review of Democrat spinelessness and a reminder about who pulls the strings in Washington. Hint: it's not The People.

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Republican Justice: blindness to conflicts of interest

The United States Supreme Court was barely able to hold that it's wrong to spend $3,000,000 electing a judge and than be able to have your newly purchased judge decide a big case in your favor. Decided June 8, 2009, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company Inc. was a 5-4 decision, with dissents by John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The defendant in the West Virginia case was a coal company that had been accused of fraud, and the jury had awarded $50 M in damages against defendant. It was A.T. Massey's Chairman and Chief Officer Don Blankenship who stepped in to buy the judgship for Brent Benjamin for $3 M after the verdict, knowing that this case would be considered by the West Virginia Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts frets that he can't criticize this obviously wrong case of a $3,000,000 judge because there are less obvious cases that would be more difficult to decide. Think about it: Roberts is urging that the Court can't decide the easy cases because there are also some other cases that aren't so easy. Why not just hang up your robes and give it up? Tell me a situation where that isn't true. Roberts goes even further, suggesting that hammering the $3,000,000 judge will undermine our fair, independent, and impartial judiciary. Good grief. Scalia had previously shown that he is completely obtuse to the idea of a conflict of interest when he decided a case favoring his duck-hunting buddy, Dick Cheney.

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Portable defibullator used on soccer field

There's no doubt that this soccer player received a jolt of electricity (you can see his foot jump at the 15 second mark). I'm still wondering about the accuracy of this on the fly diagnosis, however. Can a sports trainer really make such a quick yet accurate diagnosis as to whether an athlete needs the use of a defibrillator?

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