Debit cards: Starting to look a lot more like credit

In the final quarter of 2008, amid lingering excitement from the presidential election and continuing worries about the economy, a highly significant historic moment quietly came to pass: credit cards began to die.

While it would be months before the controversial, much-maligned C-CARD act would place wide-ranging limits upon card issuers, many Americans began their own battle against the card companies. Rather than reaching for Visa (V) or American Express (AXP), they increasingly paid with debit cards.