Monday, May 11, 2009

Chart of the Week: The Company Store

There is a line from an American folk song that says, "St. Peter don't ya call me, 'cause I can't go--I owe my soul to the company store."  As the chart shows Americans owe more to the banks than ever before.  The orgy of personal consumption of the past two decades was fueled by Wall Street's credit creations.  According to the Nilson Report the top 19 US credit card issuers held an (87.6%) market share of $972.73 billion.  The top three are JP Morgan Chase (21.22%), Bank of America (19.25%), and Citigroup (12.35%), all recipients of government aid.