Just when things looked to be smoothing themselves out in the financial world, more bad news is heralded in. The defaults on debts that began with the U.S. sub-prime lending market which subsequently led to a global loss of $7.7 trillion in stock market value since October, looks to be shifting over to the credit card sector.

Reports are indicating that since the crunching of credit began, a significant portion of the 158 million US card-holding consumers have started defaulting on their credit card payments. Banks were forced to write off about $21 billion of bad credit loans in the opening six months of this year and market forecasters are predicting a further crippling loss of $55 billion over the next twelve months.

Potential US president Barack Obama while visiting university students around the country has repeatedly advised them to; “just be careful about those credit cards”, he went on to say they shouldn’t “eat out as much”. Perhaps by advising people to cut back a little now it will help a lit in the future, not only for them as individuals but also the nation and world as a whole. He concluded, stating that “credit cards are next in line” to struggle in much the same way the housing market has.