When the economies of the West collapsed in 2008, it was blamed on a credit crunch.
If a credit crunch prevents them borrowing, investment will have to be cut whatever their plans.
Similarly, during a credit crunch asset values are depressed and corporate incomes eroded.
There is only one tiny catch: evidence of a credit crunch is notable mainly for its absence.
The case for this dramatic intervention was that the country was in the grip of a credit crunch.
The ECB's auction may make a credit crunch less severe, but it is not enough to avoid one.
This is a credit crunch and is what the Euro policy makers fear.
If prices fall, this process goes viciously into reverse, and a credit crunch can amplify the impact of falling prices.
Moreover, in Europe there are few signs pointing to a credit crunch, though some banks do seem to be lending less.
All this makes Britain more vulnerable than most to a credit crunch.
Spain and Belgium are rapidly joining Italy in facing a credit crunch.
An economy with the strength to withstand high oil prices, a housing slump and a credit crunch must have something going for it.
The biggest of the South Korean shipping companies, such as Hyundai and Hanjin, both part of diversified chaebol, also face a credit crunch.
The feeling of a credit crunch is coming more from the slowdown in velocity or turnover of money than from a scarcity of liquidity.
But as funding conditions worsened last year, the region's largest banks began to hoard it, causing a credit crunch lower down the financial food chain.
Business planning for recessions in the near term should focus on the danger to exporting industries, as well as the risk of a credit crunch.
And Ms Yellen said in December that "the possibilities of a credit crunch developing and of the economy slipping into a recession seem all too real".
Big banks in general have survived remarkably well since the onset last year of a credit crunch, and have continued to make new loans to cash-strapped companies.
ECONOMIST: The limits to removing banks' conflicts of interest
The drop in euro-zone inflation will be largely caused by disinflation in the peripheral economies, where fiscal austerity and a credit crunch will squeeze wages and prices.
Southern eurozone members are stuck in the deepest recessions in a generation, mass unemployment, a credit crunch particularly for small businesses and, in some countries, deep political turmoil.
If a credit crunch comes, can recession be far behind?
WSJ: Agenda | Irwin Stelzer: Euro-Zone Shark Still Has Its Appetite
Even exports, which might have received a boost from the weakened rupiah, have been crippled by manufacturers' dependence on relatively expensive imported raw materials and a credit crunch that has tied their hands.
But as the British Chancellor George Osborne said, they haven't got long to come up with a compelling rescue package, to prevent the eurozone's financial strife causing a credit crunch and serious recession.
That's exactly how the U.S. did it in 1991 and 1992 when it faced a credit crunch so severe that Gulf War hero George Bush lost the 1992 election to an unknown Bill Clinton.
Banks could be encouraged to build up more capital during booms, which would help to avoid excessive lending, and then be allowed to reduce their capital in bad times to cushion the economy from a credit crunch.
The Fed also cut the discount rate, which it charges banks for overnight loans, 50 basis points to 5.25%, a sign the central bank is still concerned about the lingering effects of a credit crunch that has rocked the bond and loan markets.
应用推荐