The Federal Reserve is trying to get consumer finance flowing again. The Fed announced a program last week that would provide as much as $200 billion in loans for securities backed by credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

At the same time, however, financial institutions are scrambling to turn off the taps. Meredith Whitney, the banking analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., estimates that more than $2 trillion of credit-card lines will be pulled over the next 18 months.

Such a retrenchment would be devastating to consumer spending, as credit cards are second only to jobs in their importance to consumer liquidity.

"We are now beginning to see evidence of broad-based declines in overall consumer liquidity," she wrote, estimating a decline of 45 percent, according to Reuters.

The credit-card market is lagging the mortgage market by 18 months and will begin to shrink by mid-2010, Whitney said.

Many big lenders have been trying to cut their exposure to credit cards, closing accounts, lowering limits, and instituting higher rates or stricter terms.

Some $21 billion in bad credit-card debt was written off in the first half of 2008 and tens of billions of dollars more in losses are expected.

Capital One, the largest independent card issuer, said in its earnings call in October that it had begun to reduce credit lines.

The chill in the air is consumer spending being frozen solid.