From Dan Ferris in The S&A Digest:
Analyst Meredith Whitney expects outstanding U.S. credit-card lines – which now total about $5 trillion – to shrink by $2 trillion in 2009 and another $700 billion in 2010. She points out most credit cards were issued when unemployment was below 6%.
Whitney also dispelled the popular myth that America's credit cards are maxed out. They aren't. Just 17% of total credit-card lines were drawn on at the end of 2008. But that percentage will ramp up sharply when credit-card issuers start pulling credit lines from borrowers who lose jobs and fall behind on payments.
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