Words like "average" can be very misleading. Does it denote in this case the mathematical mean? When quoting numbers like this, it's preferable to use median (half of users will be higher; half lower) instead of the mean.

For example, a relatively small number of cardholders with huge balances can inflate an average, or mean, to make the debt burden sound much worse than it is. That's why median is a much better measurement when trying to gauge what a typical person's balance might be.

The media probably likes to use averages because they're more dramatic. Still, I find this a continual source of frustration, and makes me inclined not to trust such statistics. I'm not saying Americans don't have a foolish fondness for debt. But I'm guessing the credit card median is lower than $9,000.

Your points about median vs. average as measures of central tendency are correct, at least when you have relatively few data points. However, when you have many data points (like 88 million) it is much harder for the outliers to pull up the average, and I'll bet the median and the mean are very close.

The trends cited here are butting up against the popular new practice among employers to run credit checks on prospective employees. Their theory is that, if you can't manage your own finances, we don't want you. Of course, this means that the people who really need good jobs, i.e., those unable to pay their debts, can't get them. If these trends continue, a huge segment of our population will be permanently consigned to working low-wage dead-end jobs, because their debt loads and bad credit records will prevent them from ever moving up in the workplace, and the new bankruptcy laws will make it impossible for them to start over. Meanwhile, the credit card companies will just keep lending them more cash at usurious rates just to stay afloat for another month. The U.S. is slowly becoming one huge company town.

I know I beat the drum on Salon about this alot, but it's a subject pretty dear to me. A lot of our economic woes in the credit and borrowing sector can be traced back to a lack of WAGES being paid to middle income Americans. As the cost of living increases, wages aren't keeping up, and in many cases are actually decreasing. The credit crunch is a way to maintain a lifestyle that many Americans just won't give up.

You can't create an entire economy based on low wages and useless plasma screen TV's and home theatres and barca loungers and luxury cars and luxury goods, package them to the "commoner" to make them feel rich, and then not expect the bill to come due. Instead of taking responsibility for living outside their means, and making tough choices, people continue to refuse to accept that they're not earning enough to pay for their "stuff".

My dad said a week or so ago, "Man, I couldn't buy good credit when I was your age. Now they're giving it away." And they're giving it to people who don't know how to use it and be responsible with it. And our government is willing to protect the companies from delinquent consumers, but not consumers from predatory lenders.

Seriously. Since this is Salon and no faux communist crackpot screed is every brushed off out of hand, what is the point at which you simply wipe the slate clean from people who clearly are too greedy and stupid and infantile (or just cynical) to manage their own lives. I hear a lot about predatory lending but I have yet to hear of someone who was duct taped, tossed in the trunk of a car and made to sign a mortgage app. Every new college term the brickyard is littered with credit card companies giving away frisbees and t-shirts for a new card and these so called adults I guess, don't understand that they're not giving free money away. We should certainly change the law to bar the use of these credit cards to everyone under the age of what? 45? And for the 45 year olds who get into deep debt - well it's just THE MAN ripping us off, screw him, tear up the bill!

So I want to clearly understand who you think is entitled to be responsible for themselves. Because if it's no one, great. I'm going straight to Vegas to blow it all on strippers and gambling. THE MAN WILL PAY!!!!

Perhaps we should put a massive consumption tax on all non staples, say 100% tax. If you really want that new TV you should pay double for it. Then we can take the tax and give the proceeds to all the people who bought a TV but can't pay for it. That works for me.

You're right. People do need to be responsible for themselves. See in my post about "making tough choices" when you're not earning enough to pay for a luxury lifestyle.

The disparity here is that we write laws to protect the lenders from irresponsible people. Should we not also take at least some measure of protection to protect people from irresponsible lenders? Why was it so hard to get credit 15 years ago, but today it's easier than ever? Could it be because companies realized they can make a fortune on the interest rate for those minimum payees, and relaxed their own standards? You're right, nobody tied anyone up and forced them to sign a mortgage or a credit app. But they hid fees, and rate changes, and policies from the people they were giving that credit to. and they SPECIFICALLY targeted low income (and probably less educated) families for higher interest cards. Hell, most kids don't graduate high school with a basic concept of algebra and trigonometry, how the hell do you expect them to figure out compound interest based off the set of stereo instructions you get from MBNA?

You can argue that in order to make a responsible decision, you have to make an informed decision. and credit card companies did everything in their power to prevent people from getting information about what they were really getting into. That's predatory lending. It's not forcing a signature on a dotted line. It's preventing someone from realizing the full extent of what they're signing.