Card Man

More than half of Americans feel that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the best choice to help Americans reduce or better manage their credit card costs. Only 38% believe that presidential candidate John McCain can help them financially. The cardtrakcomstg.wpengine.com online poll of more than 1,000 consumers also found that 7% believe Ralph Nader is the man to help cut credit costs. Among other minor candidates 2.5% voted for Bob Barr, while 0.5% voted for Chuck Baldwin and 0.6% voted for Cynthia McKinney. Consumer revolving credit stands at $969 billion as of August. Based on current growth patterns consumer revolving credit could still top $1 trillion by the end of this year. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the second quarter was about $825 billion or roughly 85% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). Store and gas credit cards had about $109 billion in outstandings at year-end 2007. At the end of August, Americans were $2577 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.