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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan3 who wrote (81556)	5/7/2007 10:04:43 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Pricing power starting to fail? Air fare increases on brink of failure By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 30 minutes ago Major airlines were in danger Monday of losing ground on fare increases that they attempted over the past week, as the carriers tried to navigate through weakening demand for air travel. At least in some markets, United Airlines was sticking by its increase of up to $100 per round trip for tickets often bought by business travelers and increases of up to $20 per round trip for tickets on other routes, a spokeswoman said. But Neil Bainton, who tracks fares for FareCompare.com, said United had dropped the increase in most of the largest markets. Other airlines also were mostly declining to match the increases, putting pressure on United to retreat. Continental Airlines Inc. started separate increases of $10 per round trip last week, but by Monday it had pulled back on many routes, especially where it competes with low-cost carriers. American Airlines, the nation's largest carrier, had matched Continental's increase but also retreated on most routes. US Airways Group Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. did the same, and Southwest Airlines Co. never went along to start, said officials who track air fares. Bainton, the FareCompare.com analyst, predicted that the fare increases would all be rolled back by Monday night. Jamie Baker, an analyst for J.P. Morgan, said the refusal of discounters such as Southwest to match even the smaller increases suggested that fares might quickly fall back to last week's levels. The sputtering attempts to raise prices come just before the summer peak travel season but also as carriers are battling with slower growth in demand for travel and a larger supply of available airline seats. United, a unit of UAL Corp., needed to raise fares to cover the high cost of fuel, a spokeswoman said. A spokesman for AMR Corp.'s American Airlines said the same thing. There's more at: news.yahoo.com

To: Dan3 who wrote (81556)	5/7/2007 10:10:50 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

The reason you're not seeing higher retail sales as credit card debt increases is likely because credit card debt is merely replacing home refinancing debt. Debt is being created at about the same rate, but its just showing up in a different category. .

To: Dan3 who wrote (81556)	5/7/2007 10:41:30 PM
From: starhawke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

A not insignificant portion of the credit card debt is likely to be state and federal taxes put on plastic. I'm interested in that number, but have been lazy about researching it, if it's even available yet. (And I'm really interested in the credit card vs debit card ratio.) officialpayments.com That's gotta be a special kind of self-inflicted hell: paying taxes, paying interest on those taxes AND the 'convenience fee' for the privilege.

To: Dan3 who wrote (81556)	5/8/2007 9:34:39 AM
From: TimbaBear	Respond to of 110194

Last month consumer spending was mediocre, but there was a big increase in credit card debt. So what charges were added to consumer's accounts that failed to result in broader market sales? If what we're seeing is default rate interest charges that are starting to overwhelm borrowers and causing "negative amortization" in Visa and MasterCard accounts, then our economy might have finally hit the wall - hard. Well, first I think you're on the right track in expressing my concerns, but I'd like to fine tune it a bit. "Default interest charges" may be too narrow a phrase for the costs from housing that would be adding pressure. One must also include dramatically higher (in many regions) home insurance costs, and higher property taxes. From the general take home pay, one must also deduct the higher health and life insurance costs that employers continue to increasingly pass on to the workers. Then on the normal consumption side the increases in food and energy have been pretty awesome over the last 6 years.....official numbers notwithstanding. Now, add to those forces the percentage of folks who either bought or refinanced and got a new mortgage that is an ARM. That's an awful lot of pressure sources without having any apparent income boost points to offset them. Interesting times.