Recently, my wife and I found out that we could reduce our mortgage and second mortgage interest rates substantially by refinancing and combining the two loans. This process reduced our monthly payments by over $300 and left us with substantially the same outstanding balance. The generation of credit reports for the mortgage triggered automatic reporting to our various credit card companies. One company cut our credit limit in half because we weren't using all of it. Another credit company cut our credit limit for two reasons: one was that we used too much of the credit available on the first card. The other reason was that they didn't like the bank from which we obtained our new mortgage.

The fact is that we substantially reduced our monthly cash outflow. This means that in the event of something going wrong with either my wife's or my income our chances of continuing to pay our bills has been significantly increased. In their infinite wisdom, however, these idiots reduced our credit limits. This has resulted in our eliminating our plans for a winter vacation because we do not want to come closer to our still available credit limits and thereby reduce our future credit worthiness.

On top of all of this, the banks that reduced our limits were on the list of banks which received outrageous amounts of bailout money. This is the money that was intended to increase bank's willingness to lend. Not only did it not increase bank lending, it appears that the banks have reduced their lending despite their gorging themselves at the public trough.

So, because the banks are acting like idiots, people like my wife and I who are willing and able to spend have been forced to cut back. Perhaps the Swedish answer of nationalizing the banks is the only way out of this mess. We should also be looking at the potential for fraud charges against the banking executives who took the money under false pretenses.