Say you've been paying citibank/chase/amex/bofa $700.00 a month for the past eight years. Despite the fact that you've charged nothing on the card since 1999 and have paid them over twice the original debt, your balance has essentially remained the same.

Say you wake up one morning and decide that in keeping with the new austerity, you're going to stop wasting your entire unemployment check on the mindless hedonistic pleasure of protecting your precious credit...