Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, the credit card answer is the simplest. It's because the cost of borrowing money in terms of the overall cost of credit cards is very low compared to other types of loans. For credit cards, their big costs are related to processing, monitoring and then dealing with losses. And, indeed, since the credit crunch and the riskier nature of lending right now, it actually makes sense that credit card rates are going up because it's a riskier business right now.

"I think more interesting is the issue of the fixed rate mortgage rates. They recently have turned upward, and a lot of people are perplexed and saying, 'Well, why would that happen?' Other mortgage rates - short-term rates - are going down. Why would fixed rates go up? And these fixed rates would be on those loans for 15 and 30 years. Well, here I think the answer has to do with the inflation situation. When a lender makes a fixed rate loan for a long period of time, 15 or 30 years, he is really betting on what the inflation rate is going to be in the future. And the worse the inflation expectations are - and of course they are partially going to be dictated by what's happening to inflation today - the higher the rate that that lender will need. And so I think the immediate answer as to why fixed rates have turned upward recently is because we have gotten several reports about bad inflation. All the inflation measures are up. And until those subside, I don't think we're going to see fixed rates come down."