It isn’t only the US where the credit card system has gone amok. In Japan, too, banks are becoming careless enough to give credit to those without income (!):

The unemployed woman, 36, applied for loans from several credit companies. Despite the fact that she didn’t fill in the income section of loan contract forms because she has no income, a number of the credit businesses granted her loans…

The loans she received from five loan businesses total about 6.5 million yen. She tried to get money to repay the loans through several methods such as pawning the kimono, and has repaid about 1.8 million yen, her lawyer said.

Contrary to the “saving is good for the country” mantra, the Japanese consumers’ unwillingness to spend has long stalled Japan’s recovery, which is slowly beginning (h/t RCP). So I guess when a consumer requests credit to buy something, Japanese lending companies are only too eager to provide it without much risk analysis, leading to such an absurd episode.

And, in a side note, who’d thunk that rampant consumerism of Americans would be the saving grace of the economy!