Word: banked
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There are plenty of reasons to believe that small businesses aren't getting the credit they need. In the last three months of 2009, business lending at smaller banks, which tend to cater to smaller companies, was down at a 13% annual rate, according to the Federal Reserve. Not only are loans harder to come by, but they're also more expensive. That has the potential to slow down economic recovery, since firms that can't borrow often can't expand. Policymakers have responded with a number of programs to boost small-business lending, including an Obama Administration proposal...
...Austin, Texas, Edward Lette, CEO of the Business Bank of Texas, is scouring the business community for companies to lend to. He's not having much luck. "I'm struggling to find qualified credits," says Lette. "Many times, people come in and apply for loans, but it's not to grow their business - it's to get their business out of the hole they're in because they've already borrowed way too much." On more than one occasion, Lette has recommended that instead of a loan, a business owner contemplate bankruptcy...
...more, in contrast to a merely subpar recovery in the U.S. and Europe. For thousands of companies across the globe, anything that threatens China's buoyancy threatens their own bottom lines. (Witness the sell-off in the S&P 500 on Feb. 12, when Beijing's central bank raised by a tick the so-called reserve ratio requirement for its banks.) And nothing, not even massive government infrastructure spending, has driven China's growth more than real estate investment...
...Buttressing that sort of attitude are the limited ways in which Chinese citizens can put their nest eggs to work. Bank interest rates remain regulated and miserly - offering less than 1% return on a standard savings account - and China has only just begun to open the door to its citizens being able to invest legally abroad. For most savers, that leaves real estate or the stock market - and if an apartment is the equivalent of a bar of gold, the stock market is the equivalent of a casino. Generally speaking, the Chinese love to gamble, but they love their bars...
Hope in the West Bank...