Of course bank lending is stalling; home equity lines of credit pose a risk to consumer spending

so says Rebecca Wilder

The Wall Street Journal ran a story about reduced bank lending originating from those banks that received TARP monies. Frankly, I don't know what kind of response the WSJ was going for, but I know what mine was: of course bank lending is stalling. Amid the precipitous economic decline, loan origination would likely be much worse had the banks not received capital injections. And in looking at the data, I noticed that another shoe might drop on consumer spending: home equity lines of credit are surging.

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous