Banks continued to tighten lending standards for businesses and consumers over the past three months, the Federal Reserve’s latest survey of loan officers showed. But a smaller fraction of banks were making it harder to get loans, an encouraging sign the grip of the credit crunch may soon be easing.
About 15% of banks, on net, said they imposed stricter standards on business loans to firms of all sizes, a smaller fraction than those who said the same in July. They cited a reduced tolerance for risk, an uncertain or unfavorable …

For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.
With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
In all, more than one out of every six workers …

As Congress nears votes on legislation that would overhaul the health care system, many small businesses say they are facing the steepest rise in insurance premiums they have seen in recent years.
Insurance brokers and benefits consultants say their small business clients are seeing premiums go up an average of about 15 percent for the coming year — double the rate of last year’s increases. That would mean an annual premium that was $4,500 per employee in 2008 and $4,800 this year would rise to $5,500 in 2010.

Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter – a sign the plague is still spreading.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter, according to a report issued Thursday.
“They were the worst three months of all time,” said Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.
During that time, 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter — whether a default notice, auction …

Deteriorating loan portfolios and stricter regulation could choke off lending just as the recovery is getting started.
Judging from the rally in bank stocks these last six months, confidence has come back to the financial sector. Or is it merely the eye of the credit hurricane?
Many banks have turned profitable again this year after several quarters of losses, and that trend is expected to continue as third-quarter earnings reporting season begins this week. Big Wall Street firms JPMorgan Chase ( JPM – news …

The Obama administration “refused” to take meaningful steps to reform the banking system in the wake of last year’s financial crisis, and the opportunity to do so has now been missed, says a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.
Simon Johnson told PBS’s Bill Moyers that he expects an even larger financial crisis to hit the United States in the coming years because the system was not fixed through reform, but rather through a massive injection of taxpayers’ money into the failing banks.
“The short term opportunity was missed,” Johnson …

“American’s Holding Dollars Should Be Worried”