Consumer Credit Card Home Equity Equivalency Multiplier should exist, but does not.

My Simple Math Detective idea for next year, 2025, is the creation of a true multiplier of Consumer Credit Card Debt so it can be compared to Consumer Home Equity Equivalently. 

What if one day the correct Consumer Credit Card debt multiplier reveals there is more consumer debt, than consumer home equity? 

I personally view more consumer credit card debt than consumer home equity as a major, possibly unfixable economic disaster, yet no one is keeping score as Consumer Credit Card debt keeps rising. 

I have estimated a Consumer Credit Card Debt multiplier of 12. So the 1.2 trillion dollars in Consumer Credit Card is the equivalent of 14.4 Trillion dollars in Home Equity.

As of September, 2024, according to CNBC, there is 32 trillion dollars in Consumer Home Equity. 

 

As long as a Consumer Credit Card Debt multiplier of 12X is accurate, then there is wiggle room between 14.4 Trillion dollars of actual Consumer Credit Card Debt versus 32 Billion of Consumer Home Equity.

But what if the correct multiplier is actually 16X? Suddenly the numbers merge closer, 19.2 trillion actual Consumer Credit Card debt versus 32 Trillion dollars of Home Equity Wealth.

In 2008, home values plummeted by an average of 33%. My hope for 2025 is real Economists assess a true comparative multiplier of Consumer Credit Card Debt to Home Equity, because one thing that is different from 2008, Credit Card Interest rates have increased by 50% or higher while total Consumer Credit Card Debt has also risen by 50%.

Dare I mention Lending Tree estimates there is 1.74 trillion in student loan debt for a total of 3 trillion dollars in Consumer Credit Card and Student Loan Debt. Suddenly the 12X multiplier eclipses the total Home Equity, 36 Trillion to 32 Trillion.

 

With the growing transition to a data economy, we may witness fewer, but better paying jobs, creating an even greater economic divide then has been witness since probably the Great Depression that started in the late 1920's. 

 

Are we inadvertently witnessing a 100 year Economic Cycle and are on the precipice of another great depression 100 years later?