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So it looks like America's long credit-card drunk will be over, but not without severe withdrawal pains for the truly besotted.
Still, overall, it will be better to be sober -- provided Congress and federal regulators keep a close eye on banks and other lenders that have lured even risky credit prospects with teaser rates, then skinned cardholders with surprise rate increases and mystery fees.
Now lenders are swearing off their loose-credit ways, though not out of any concern for customers trapped in expanding cycles of debt when they were too easily tempted to spend money they didn't have.
No, lenders are worried about what these cardholders' insolvency will mean to their own bottom lines. After swallowing $21 billion in bad credit card debt in the first half of the year alone, lending companies are looking at an economic landscape crowded with laid-off workers and homeowners facing foreclosures.
Industry analysts told The New York Times last week that lenders could lose another $55 billion over the next year and a half.
An industry that had been raking in near record gains with questionable, though legal, practices can expect no tears when the game changes. And borrowers should know that it is they who will pay in the end, with higher interest and lower credit limits even for cardholders with good credit records.
That can hurt people's credit rating, meaning they will find it harder to get loans and will pay higher interest on those they get -- an undeserved penalty for borrowers who have played by the rules. Regulators should look for ways to protect good credit consumers.
For many borrowers, though, a return to sanity is overdue. Most likely will find a lot of stuff they've been buying is stuff they really don't need. Some may have to confront a harder reality: that their income does not cover the essentials, like food, shelter and fuel; that, in a sense, they've been living on borrowed time.
Time's up.
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