As you know the banks in central Indiana are aggressively tightening up credit.  It is much harder for a borrower to get financing today than it was 2 years ago and many borrowers that don’t match up to the new standards are being shown the door.   There is an interesting report as of 2/1/08 from Bloomberg that identifies how much each financial institution has written off for bad debts in 2007. 

Total write-offs (much due to the sub-prime market)  are $146 Billion:  Merrill Lynch in for $24.5B, Citigroup $22.1B, Bank of America $7.9B, Wachovia $4.7B, Chase $3.2B, Wells Fargo $1.7B, National City $1.4B; the list stopped at $1.0B others under that point are not named.  If your business is irregular in profit performance, banks are less tolerant  and because of other factors outside of your industry or market, your company could be in jeopardy.  Consistent, steady profit performance is critical to maintaining outside financing support in up and down financial markets.   A company with strong steady profitability can get financing about anytime or anywhere.