Credit card debt jumps; another reflection of housing problem?

Credit card debt went up 10 percent in May; it appears to be another sign of the housing bubble, namely the rise in mortgage rates.

David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, said some of the surge in credit card debt reflects the fact that it is getting harder to get home equity loans with banks tightening up on standards and home values not soaring as they did during the housing boom.

“We think that people who had been refinancing their credit card debt into home equity loans are finding that harder to do now,” Wyss said.

Democrats can play this issue right, in the freewheeling, “what, me regulate?” BushCo environment, if a call for new federal oversight and “clarity of mortgage” issues are made part of the 2008 platform.