For instance, the closely watched quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey from the Fed only tells you if bank loan officers think the terms and conditions of credit are getting tighter or looser since the last survey. Nearly a fifth of the respondents - more than double the number in the second quarter - had said they tightened lending standards on commercial and industrial loans to companies with sales over $50million. About a quarter of domestic banks tightened lending standards on consumer loans other than credit cards, up from about 10percent in the previous quarterly survey. But while that survey indicates banks have clamped down on lending, most small businesses haven’t seen much tighter borrowing conditions. The National Federation of Independent Business said 32percent of its 670 respondents in its December survey reported all their credit needs were met, while 7percent said they were not, up slightly from the 4percent of respondents in November. What we don’t want to see is a repeat of the 1990-1991 recession when some banks became so risk averse that they all but stopped lending, especially to fund commercial real estate, which had been the root cause of that economic pullback. read more