Excess capacity could dampen business investment, and so will banks' continued reluctance to lend.

ECONOMIST: Britain's budget

Banks' reluctance to lend as they strive to repair their overstretched balance-sheets is impairing the effectiveness of monetary policy.

ECONOMIST: Britain's economy: Combating the recession | The

In any case, it is banks' reluctance to lend, not a buyers' strike, that has the housing market on its knees.

ECONOMIST: The economy

If bank lending is turning down, for example, anecdotal information is needed to help sort out whether the primary cause is reluctance to lend, a reduction in loan demand, or some combination of the two.

FORBES: What's Choking Bank Lending?

That augurs well for higher business investment in 2011, led by big firms able to invest out of their own resources or by borrowing on the capital markets, and so unhindered by banks' reluctance to lend.

ECONOMIST: The surprise fall in GDP

This so-called moral hazard argument against rescuing those who have borrowed too much or lent too much is in play again right now - with Germany's reluctance to lend its ample financial resources to Greece and Italy, to keep them well away from the brink of collapse during this lending strike by commercial providers of finance.

BBC: Can Merkel and Sarkozy turn the tide of markets?

The Bank of England believes that the continued serious weakness of the economy stems in part from the perceived reluctance of banks to lend to small businesses.

BBC: Is cheap credit for small businesses the answer?

The TAF facility, by contrast, allows many smaller banks to participate in setting the interest rate, overcoming a perceived reluctance of the big institutions to lend money.

FORBES: Magazine Article

There are other reasons for such reluctance, not the least of which are that Ghana is not a country in which international banks are especially keen to lend, and the company is highly leveraged.

ECONOMIST: Gold hedging: Bugs | The