Credit card industry may cut $2 trillion of lines: analyst - Yahoo! News: "The U.S. credit card industry may pull back well over $2 trillion of lines over the next 18 months due to risk aversion and regulatory changes, leading to sharp declines in consumer spending, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said.

The credit card is the second key source of consumer liquidity, the first being jobs, the Oppenheimer & Co analyst noted.

'In other words, we expect available consumer liquidity in the form or credit-card lines to decline by 45 percent.'"
---------
Merry Christmas, ho ho ho.

I suspect the big toy for Christmas 2009 will be hand-carved wooden soldiers. Carved by parent, that is.