Word: creditably
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...understand how the credit crunch is hitting American business - and, in turn, you - look no further than the Dog Shop, a pet-supplies and -grooming store in Washington, D.C. This holiday season, owner Jane Huelle will stock only four varieties of Christmas-cookie dog treats instead of the usual six. That's because a month and a half ago she got a letter from her credit-card company saying her line of credit was being docked by thousands of dollars...
...Huelle hadn't done anything wrong - she never missed a payment, and her credit score was unchanged - but tighter lending standards across the board meant the safety net she'd counted on for emergencies (a dog-dryer breakdown, say) was suddenly that much smaller. Now, as a precaution, she's cutting outlays, including the money she spends on inventory. "The banks are looking at everyone with a fine-tooth comb," she says. "In terms of the consumer, they're not going to have the same selection or quantity they would have otherwise...
...Only in recent weeks have those concerns started to translate to Main Street: retailers stocking less for Christmas, fears that companies won't make payroll. Though some of the direr projections of where the credit crunch may lead are unlikely, the effects are nonetheless filtering down to the average consumer and worker. (See the 10 steps to the financial meltdown here...
...shot into overdrive in the wake of the corporate failures and takeovers that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15. Less than two weeks earlier, on Sept. 4, the Association for Financial Professionals surveyed more than 350 large companies about how the availability of short-term credit (or the lack thereof) was affecting business. Seventy-one percent said there was no significant impact, 11% said growth had slowed, and only 2% said business had contracted...
...trade group was shocked to see the results of a similar survey they ran three weeks later, between Sept. 26 and 29. Thity-seven percent of companies said that as a result of reduced access to short-term credit, they had cut capital spending during the previous month. Twenty-six percent had frozen or reduced hiring, and 22% had considered layoffs. Ten percent had reduced inventory, and 7% had contemplated closing stores or factories. Workers and customers of the world, those are effects you'll feel...