Credit Card Companies Pulling Back Credit Offers to American Households: Those Zero Percent Offers have now Turned into 30% Offers with Annual Fees

Credit cards are ubiquitous like air in the American economy. Virtually every American that can qualify for a credit card has one (or many) in their wallet. Credit card companies have flooded the market with millions of plastic rectangles that have now come back to bite many American consumers. If we rewind back to the early days of this crisis, (so much has happened since that time) we will remember that the banking bailout involved some necessity of keeping credit alive. At least this is how it was presented to the American public. No bailout equaled no access to credit. Yet since that time we have seen consumer credit simply collapse on a record pace. Part of this is due to the extinguishing of debt via bankruptcy but also the fact that credit card companies (aka big banks) are not making loans accessible to the public. (more)