You know it's bad in credit card land when the companies are paying customers to "go away" - American Express (AXP) is out with a pilot program to pay customers $300 to close their account. Why would they do that? Because they fear what is coming down the road in terms of defaults - hence they can limit their exposure to losses if people simply close their accounts today, when they still "can".
Implications? For corporations it shows risk taking is OUT, and self preservation is IN (that's a multiple shrinking phenomenon in terms of stock prices). For consumers, it's just another arrow to the heart of their overspending ways; another brick taken away from the credit laden society.