Uh-oh, someone forgot to pay their bills! Exciting new data from the American Bankers Association shows that late payments on consumer loans have risen to 2.65%—an 8.6% increase from the previous quarter. People are finally wising up to the fact that ignoring your mortgage is the fast path to the easy lifestyle you always wanted. [FiveCentNickel]
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Comments:
@t0fu: I concur.
The original article reads: "...late payments on consumer loans increased to 2.65% during the fourth quarter of 2007... This is an 8.6% increase over the preceding quarter..."
@t0fu:
I'm going to assume Carey meant 26.5%?
No, I checked the link, it's slightly confusing wording, but late payments has skyrocketed 8.6% to a total of 2.65% of consumer loans being payed late. Simple algebra tells us that the before the rise approximately 2.44% of consumer loans were payed late. @Carey, you might want to change the wording, though it makes sense, on first reading I think most readers will assume a typo.
P.S. Why can I use HTML tags if I only use a lesserthan, but not if I use a greater than at the end of the tag? Is it just that the Gawker comment system doesn't allow HTML, but at least for me, Firefox renders the malformed code that Gawker doesn't recognize?
@Alex Brewer: That's what happens when people haphazardly throw out numbers with very little to no context at all.
It probably would've also been helpful to mention this tidbit: "[it] is the highest consumer loan delinquency rate since the first quarter of 1992, when the U.S. economy had just emerged from a recession"
Though, I suppose that would defeat the whole purpose of clicking-through to get to the original content...
@Alex Brewer: omg - is that a strike? seriously? this is the day i thought would only come in my dreams. pinch me.
hooray
hooray
2.6%? That's it? I kind of thought in today's sour economic climate it would be a bit more dramatic.
@t0fu: Mathtards:
Let's make this easier for you with round numbers.
If a rate of 10% goes up by 50%, it's now 15%. (50% of 10% is 5%).
get it? Shoulda payed more attention back in 5th grade.
I@unklegwar: I'm just one foot pound per second per second from socking your arm out of your rippet. How can you abuse the poor in cents with facks like that?
It's an interesting meta-math issue. That's why you should NEVER show a percentage growth/decline as a percent. Sure, its valid, but it's also much harder to understand.
Rate of 10% goes up by 5 points. 15%
Rate of 15% goes up by 10 points. 25%.
@timmus: I'm wondering if they include credit cards in those stats. If they don't well then the numbers should be much higher.
@unklegwar: You sir, are indigestable.
In the context of the original sentence, there are multiple meanings to be made from numbers (especially percentages) presented in such a vague manner.
And yes, I realize that this comment is very late. I just hate it when people are unnecessarily mean.
"consumer loans have skyrocketed 8.6% to 2.65%"
lol wut