Remember the good old days, way back in 2006, when the streets were paved with credit-gold as far as the eye could see and credit cards rained from the sky? Even the credit-destitute were treated like kings by the credit card companies and courted with lavish offers of unlimited credit.

Here in the future, the world has changed. Banks claim they want to lend money, but really they'd prefer to buy other banks with government money.

Credit issuers aren't sure they want to lend money to people who need to borrow it, a situation somewhat analogous to the Groucho Marx axiom, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

And woe betide those who ask for loans with glaring blemishes on their credit reports. An unpaid collection is apt to be regarded like a cockroach in the consomm.

These days, wrecking your ability to get credit is about as easy as blowing over a house of credit cards......

You see, credit scores are not built around common sense. Doing away with unused lines of credit would make sense to most human beings, but not so much to a credit scoring model.