Fed Says `Historical Highs' of Banks Tighten Lending Standards

By Scott Lanman

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve said the proportion of U.S. banks making it tougher for companies and consumers to borrow approached a record in the past three months as the credit crunch deepened....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a45nIbT1eKLo&refer=home

Stevejhx- Let see how fast this information is considered not worthy of the site by the bulls. My guess Houser and JuiceMan will lead the charge and say that this proves nothing.

dco, JuiceMan is almost becoming reasonable.

Houser, on the other hand, is the New Spunky.

Does anybody miss Spunky?

Don't let your guard down with JuiceMan. He'll turn on you quicker than Bear went bankrupt.

Notice that you an I are the only ones on this blog. The bulls don't even want to read it. it's actually funny.

Nobody wanted to read my Virgin Mary posting, either, and that was a hoot!

To be fair, it's hard to tell from the article exactly what the nature of the "tightening" is. If all they're saying is that spreads are widening between banks' cost of funds and the rates they charge their customers, that's hardly news. Anyone who can read a rate table knew that already.

If underwriting standards are also getting tougher, that's a separate development - and an interesting one - but it's not what the article describes. The article only says that borrowers who qualify for the best rates get a crappy deal; it doesn't actually say that qualifying for those rates has gotten harder.