Moe Meet Ron

Our friends, the jolly bankers. NYTimes (070.28.08), via The Washington Monthly:

"Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring.

Two vital forms of credit used by companies — commercial and industrial loans from banks, and short-term 'commercial paper' not backed by collateral — collectively dropped almost 3 percent over the last year, to $3.27 trillion from $3.36 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data."

Worried Banks Sharply Reduce Business Loans

"That is the largest annual decline since the credit tightening that began with the last recession, in 2001."

Sez Kevin: "Of course banks overshot on the way up and are overshooting on the way down too. That's what always happens. It happened with savings and loans, it happened with South American loans, it happened with dotcoms, it happened with housing, it always happens."