One man's adventures in the world of personal credit
This Motley Fool article details the effects that different actions would likely have on a real individual's credit score. Interesting.
This article at Motley Fool offers advice about what to do if you have credit accounts that you no longer use. As with so much else related to personal credit, the best choice is counter-intuitive: it's probably best for your credit record if you leave them open, but unused. Read the article for the specifics.
This is even crazier than adjustable-rate mortgages (discussed previously here and here): in southwest Florida interest-only loans (in which the holder only pays interest, no principal for a certain amount of time) constitute up to 75% of mortgates being taken out right now. The article says that these loans work for these reasons:
So, basically it's a speculator's market--a housing bubble. As long as everything stays the same, it will work, but as soon as any one factor changes, the whole house of cards is likely to come down.