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The Federal Reserve-yes, that same institution that reassured us all last month in its Report to Congress on the Practices of the Consumer Credit Industry in Soliciting and Extending Credit and their Effects on Consumer Debt and Insolvency that "the aggregate growth of consumer debt has not entailed a threat to the household sector of the economy-released statistics this week indicating that outstanding non-mortgage consumer credit had increased by $4.4 billion in May. That $4.4 billion is the latest in a string of increases-seven consecutive months-and the largest single-month increase since October of 2004. The net increase since the end of 2005 if more than $64 billion, with no indication that the pace is slowing.

At the same time, McClatchy Newspapers is reporting that last year credit card companies-the ones the Federal Reserve assured us were "carefully pre-screening" those to whom they extended credit offers-sent out more than 6 billion solicitations. And those solicitations aren't just offers of credit, either. According to McClatchy, 58% of those offers included some kind of "rewards" for the use of credit. Those incentives rarely work out to the consumer's benefit, since interest on a purchase not paid off within the grace period will often more than consume the "cash back" associated with the purchase. Such programs would have been very relevant factors for consideration by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in responding to Congress's concern as to whether credit card companies offered credit "in a manner that encourages consumers to accumulate additional debt"-had the Board decided to address that concern at all.