We had that thread a couple weeks ago about credit cards. I was reading this New York Times article about the unfolding credit card mess. I think most ETS readers are pretty responsible with their credit cards, so I was struck by one aspect of this mess that I hadn't thought of--lower personal credit ratings.

One part of the formulas various rating agencies use to calculate your credit rating is how much of your credit line you are actually borrowing against. However, banks have been unilaterally lowering the credit lines of many people or even cutting off some credit, like home equity lines of credit, even though they haven't missed any payments, lost a job, or done anything "bad". So, even if you faithfully pay off the balance every month, your average balance is going to be a larger percentage of your available credit if your bank lowers your limit or closes a line of credit, therefore your credit score could go down. That could make it harder to borrow or lead to higher interest rates to borrow for a car, a student loan, a mortgage, etc.