Originally Posted by Wheeldog

On a national level we have been on a spending spree for the past several years. Much of it has been made possible through easy credit. Credit cards have allowed people to spend well beyond their financial means. Credit companies issuing these cards marketed them like candy to children. As long as the economy was expanding most users were able to meet their payments. Now, however, the economic party is winding down, and holders are increasingly defaulting on their payments.

What we may be seeing is the collapse of a financial house of cards. One of the lessons taught in natural science is that everything is related. Virtually nothing happens in a vacuum. Record cost of oil, disintegration of the real estate market, meltdown of lending companies, falling value of the dollar, rumors of pending bank failures, etc. are not isolated events. They are pieces of a larger dynamic jigsaw. When they all come together it probably will not be a pretty picture.