A stack of all those credit cards would reach more than 70 miles into space

[SoCalDem]

Just one "not-so-fun-fact" about credit card usage, from:

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-industry-facts-personal-debt-statistics-1276.php

others:


Miscellaneous

* There were 984 million bank-issued Visa and MasterCard credit card and debit card accounts in the U.S in 2006. (Sources: Visa USA, MasterCard International)
* The top 10 credit card issuers controlled approximately 88 percent of the credit card market at the end of 2006, based on credit card receivables outstanding. (Source: FDIC)
* U.S. Visa cardholders alone conduct more than $1 trillion in annual volume. (Source: Visa USA internal statistics, 4th quarter 2006)
* Consumers carry more than 1 billion Visa cards worldwide. More than 450 million of those cards are in the United States. (Source: Visa USA internal statistics, 4th quarter 2006)

snip

# As of March 31, 2009, there were 318 million Visa credit cards and 346 million Visa debit cards in circulation in the United States. (Source: Visa.com)
# As of June 30, 2009, there were 220 million MasterCard credit cards and 127 million MasterCard debit cards in circulation in the United States. (Source: MasterCard.com)

# As of December 31, 2008, there were 54 million American Express credit cards in circulation in the United States. (Source: Nilson Report, February 2009)
# As of December 31, 2008, there were 57.1 million Discover credit cards in circulation in the United States. (Source: Nilson Report, February 2009)
# Eighty-four percent of the student population overall have credit cards, an increase of approximately 11 percent since the fall of 2004. (Source: Sallie Mae, "How Undergraduate Students Use Credit Cards," April 2009)

# Only 2 percent of undergraduates had no credit history. (Source: Sallie Mae, "How Undergraduate Students Use Credit Cards," April 2009)
# Half of college undergraduates had four or more credit cards in 2008. That's up from 43 percent in 2004 and just 32 percent in 2000. (Source: Sallie Mae, "How Undergraduate Students Use Credit Cards," April 2009)

# Since 2004, students who arrived on campus as freshmen with a credit card already in-hand have increased from 23 percent to 39 percent. (Source: Sallie Mae, "How Undergraduate Students Use Credit Cards," April 2009)