A bigger story than the 11% leap in stock prices yesterday, in the eyes of the
Times, is the pullback in the credit card market, which it says is affecting even creditworthy consumers.
Let's face it, even the most bullish among us don't expect that yesterday's sudden -- if ethereal -- surge in consumers' net worths will lead to their spreading the wealth around anytime
soon (note, too, that consumer confidence was reported at an "all-time low" Tuesday by the
Conference Board ). But the
consumer credit squeeze is on as limits get maxed out, defaults mount and issuers get skittish.
And lest you think the
Times is kidding around, how's this for an ominous
lede: "First came the mortgage crisis. Now comes the credit card crisis." In fact, Gary L. Crittenden, CFO at Citigroup, says that "credit card net charge-offs could exceed historical norms" if the
job situation doesn't turn around.
Looking deeper into the financial pages, that didn't begin to happen yesterday, by a long stretch. The media industry faces a particularly gruesome
future with layoffs announced at
Time Inc.,
Doubleday and
Gannett .
Meanwhile, the
Christian Science Monitor going to weekly publication in its print edition.
"The paradox of all these announcements is that newspapers and magazines do not have an audience problem," writes
media columnist David Carr , "but they do have a consumer problem."
So, too, do brand marketers.
"The fear factor among lenders has deepened just as the crisis makes it harder for some financially stretched consumers to wean themselves from credit cards for even basic needs,
like gas and food," writes the
Times' Eric Dash. But as the story makes clear, wean is indeed the name of the game
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