Consumer Balance Sheets

From The Big Picture: 

The Fed released its report on consumer credit, and it comes as no surprise that revolving credit eased for the 26th consecutive month as consumers continue to shed credit — either by paying it down or, in some cases, walking away from it. From a high of $973.6 billion in August 2008, revolving credit has contracted by $173.1 billion to $800.5 billion (a level last seen six years ago, in December 2004). It is an annualized rate of decline of about 17.75%. Nonrevolving credit has been flatlining over the same period:

Comment:  Consumer balance sheetsw continue to improve.  Some of this is by choice {people choosing to get out of debt by paying down their credit cards}.  A lot of this comes from the fact that credit has been cut off for many households and is unlikely to be available to them on the same terms as it was before.

Link:  Consumer Deleveraging Continues.