Via NewsAlert we learn about this Washington Post article about US Department of Education employees who have gone to town, literally, at taxpayer expense.

In a decade of an alarming credit crunch, rising cost of food, skyrocketed costs of living and an alarming debt for entertainment, most young people struggle to understand the basics of personal finance. This is from personal experience, observation and according to the results of a recently published government poll.

Wouldn't PIN numbers make credit cards safer and less vulnerable to ID theft? There is a good news for credit card users. It seems that the industry is moving toward giving an option to consumers who will soon be able to choose between a signature or PIN number in order to authenticate the transaction.

The Federal Reserve on Friday approved the proposal, released Thursday by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration. The proposal would give reasonable time to make payments and much more.

The five-year-old Iraq conflict is America’s first “credit card war.” And like anyone who has run up a huge credit card bill knows, a credit card debt can turn into a crushing burden with long-term consequences. This, too, will be a legacy of the Iraq War.

Discover Financial Services, the credit-card company that's lost more than a third of its market value since being spun off by Morgan Stanley in June, said profit fell 65 percent on charges tied to selling a U.K. unit.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) announced today that it has priced the initial public offering of 406,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at $44 per share. Visa's shares will begin trading on March 19, 2008, on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "V".

Add Hannaford supermarkets to the latest list of retailers victimized by hackers due to credit card security breach as they have stolen credit card and debit card information of Hannaford customers.

As is being reported in the news, there is an ongoing storm in the financial world; a situation where banks are wary of lending to each other and as a result, there is less money available for new debtors, a situation otherwise known as the credit crunch.
What does this mean for the ordinary consumer?

Consumers are warned about a mysterious ICH Services charge that may appear on their credit card statement.

Old credit card debt, real or otherwise, might be making a detour. Here comes a new term in relation to debt: Zombie Debt. Have you heard about it before?

A new study by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington research institution finds that as the credit squeeze has made it more difficult to obtain property-based lines of credit, American consumers are turning to their credit cards as an alternative. VOA's Barry Wood has more.