Are bank's lending?

Our industry can develop a bevy of statistics that exhibit that banks are lending again – to both large and small companies. But in reality, credit has definitely tightened and will remain so for some time. Bank regulators are seeing to that. I’m not bemoaning our regulators here – actually it goes beyond them – back to reality. We are moving back to more traditional lending – borrowers having the proper blend of equity and cash flow to support their borrowing needs – back to normality. The unfortunate situation is that real estate equity is minimal or non-existent. Over the past decade equity was not a pre-requisite to borrowing – one could obtain 100 % financing quite easily – no longer. And cash flow – with this recession – is typically based on projections – based on who knows when this economy will begin a sustained recovery. I do believe that there is consensus that the economy has bottomed. But we are in a much longer and flatter part of the “L” shaped recovery than ever anticipated. Some see some light at the end of the tunnel – but not a strong beam. Therefore bank lending will progress – but only as cash flow and real equity also progress.