Can someone please explain the "credit freeze" I keep hearing the politicians talking about?

[NNN0LHI]

I personally don't know anyone having trouble getting credit. I recently applied for several credit cards (Just to see what would happen.), and they were all approved with high limits. I have had no credit card cancellations or reductions in any of my lines of credit. I applied for a loan on an investment property and had no problem getting it approved. (I backed out of that deal though because all the doom and gloom talk has me nervous.) I am confident I could walk into a car dealership and get the credit to buy a new car if I wanted to with no money down no problem. Maybe not a Maserati? But any average car or truck.

I have good credit but mine and my wifes combined income is very low. $36,000 a year is all.

Its like I am living in a different world then the one I keep hearing about.

Anyone else had experiences like mine recently with the so called "credit freeze?"

Don

[ogneopasno]

1. We have excellent credit and had a terrible time getting a loan for some work on our house last

summer. Turns out I had a forgotten parking ticket that had gone to collections. I paid it, got confirmation that it had been paid, and the bank still dragged its feet because the confirmation wasn't laid out the way the bank wanted it. Our banker was dying of embarrassment, saying that something like this wouldn't have been a problem even six months before. But it was for us, and even at the end will still got a shitty rate. It was a total nightmare.

[notadmblnd]

2. the bankers are sitting on their cash just like a drug dealer sits on his stash

[CJCRANE]

4. That's what it seems like.

Kind of like when the croupier calls time and you take your chips and go home.

Except the banks had -1 trillion chips but somehow they managed to persuade the govt to make up the difference.

[Greyhound]

3. The so-called "credit freeze" is primarily between banks themselves.

The consumer credit freeze is partly due to this and the fact that the credit card companies themselves don't have any money.

Basically, the whole financial sector's game of musical chairs has everyone scared shitless. They all know that sooner or later many of them will not survive and nobody wants to be left holding a bag full of worthless I.O.U.s from one of the failures.

Obviously there is lot more to this, the formerly illegal side-bets like CDS, CDO, and a plethora of other leveraged con games with no assets behind them, but that is very basically what it is.