The next crisis: credit cards

It’s more important than ever to pay attention to your credit card accounts. Lenders across the country are curtailing credit card offers and credit limits, and UW Madison professor of consumer science, J. Michael Collins, says there’s a good reason for that. “For a long time, people have been able to use their home equity as a way to pay off their credit card debt,” says Collins. “That no longer exists, so credit card companies are responding to the changes in the housing market. It just shows how all these parts of our economy are so interlinked.”