In a twist that might feel like the ultimate irony, two friends in the mortgage business in the United States are now facing the loss of their homes by foreclosure due to missed mortgage payments. The same phenomenon s being experienced by people in England as home repossession rates increase.

The fallout from tightening credit impacts all sorts of people, other than just the ability to get new credit, Manufacturing and retail jobs have been cut back as retail sales have slid.

It was interesting to note that the consumption of consumer credit increased in the U.S. in November by an annualized rate of 11.3%. In fact consumers in the U.S. have increased their level of revolving debt from $748 billion in 2002 to $937 billion as of the end of November, 2007.

I would expect to see the rate of consumer revolving indebtedness increase as a result of the mortgage meltdown which makes easy home equity or refi money less available. It will only be human nature for consumers to simply find alternative routs of credit to fuel behavioral buying or monthly gaps.

In the UK the Bank of England reports that corresponding consumer credit grew in November at a 5.7% annualized rate. U.S. or U.K. it doesn’t matter the all you can eat buffet of consumer credit is still open for business.

A number of banks and lenders are eliminating jobs including Citibank, Citigroup, National City Mortgage, Countrywide, Wachovia, KeyCorp, Chevy Chase, Capital One and others. It is apparent that when banks make silly business choices that it impacts consumers on many different levels.

Not only does the general public have less access to credit but employees of the very banks are displaced, laid off, made redundant and send packing which leaves them in a precarious financial position as well.

Imagine how hard it is and must be to find new employment within a mortgage industry that looks like a piece of prime beef that just got tossed on a hot grill and is constricting.

It is estimated that the mortgage industry will need to lose about 1 out of every 3 employees in 2008 if the industry wants to try to generate a profit.