The Financial Times recently reported that poor quarterly results posted during the past two weeks by US banks suggest that credit problems are expanding to include home equity loans, car loans and credit card balances. US banks have raised reserves of loan losses by at least $6 billion in the second quarter, indicating a substantial rise in the number and types of debt affected.

"What started out merely as a subprime problem has expanded more broadly in the mortgage space and problems are getting worse at a faster pace than many had expected," Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Mayo told the Financial Times. "On top of this, there is an uptick in auto loan problems, which may or may not be seasonal, and there is more body language from the banks that the state of the consumer was somewhat less strong (than thought)."

Clearly, these new areas of consumer debt are of great concern as banks have increased their reserves in anticipation of defaults. Moreover, a difficult market for auto loans may end up hurting auto sales during the next couple of quarters just as GM was set to beat out Toyota in sales. Just how bad is it? Well, the percent of borrowers of prime auto loans that are more than 30 days delinquent on the debt has risen to more than 2.5 percent, according to JPMorgan.

"We expect the severity of auto financing losses to grow due to extended financing terms, increased loss per vehicle and a quicker move to repossessions," JP Morgan analysts Eric Selle and Atiba Edwards said in a report. "We believe the core assets of Ford Motor Credit and GMAC are sound and they have sufficient liquidity. However, we expect higher U.S. prime auto borrower defaults over the next 18 months to cause GMAC's and Ford Motor Credit's profits to decline and their leverage to rise."

In the end, consumer debt problems continue to compound amid large mortgage resets, fewer people borrowing against their home equity, and higher fuel and food costs. These factors have cummulatively reduced the liquidity of consumers and promises to be a continuing problem.