Last week I signed preliminary paperwork to refinance my house, saving about $300 per month. Tonight, my mailbox contained letters from seven lenders offering to beat the deal offered by CitiMortgage. Also the usual weekly credit-card offer from Capitol One, and two “helpful reminders” from my current credit-card companies about their extremely low balance-transfer rates.

It seems when banks can’t figure out if other banks are worth lending money to, they fall back to something more reliable: gainfully-employed consumers who pay their bills on time.