Plastic profits approach meltdown

Few lines of US bank business have proved as profitable or as seemingly failure-proof as consumer lending through credit cards. After all, what other loans carry interest rates close to 20% and a 50% return on equity? Bankers all wanted to get a piece of the action. As a result, there are 7,000 US bank card issuers. Over the past two years these have mailed out an astonishing 5 billion card offers ­ many of them “pre-approved”­ to college and high-school students, as well as to the unemployed.