Wanted: Credit Crunch Anecdotes

I have given some multi-billion dollar examples of how businesses continue to fund new projects despite the so-called credit crunch. There are remarkably few counter-examples.

I have a friend who has some lake property, against which he took out a callable loan and has faithfully made the payments. The loan was just called. I'm not sure this is a counter-example (is there a good project he can't fund because of the loan call?), but I mention it because it's one of the only anecdotes I have that might suggest that the bank crisis is even trickling out to the wider economy.

CNNMoney.com has a story of 12 small businesses during the credit crunch. I was really eager to read this one, anticipating that I'd learn about real-live small businesses that are unable to fund good projects because of this month's banking crisis. Well, I was disappointed. Of those 12 businesses, many reported that their troubles began a year ago. Others report that they are doing great, and are just worried that, someday, a credit denial will get in the way of their continued success. One business owner had been continually denied credit for the last four years -- so this month was nothing special! Only the boogie board shop owner provided a possible counter-example: he said that his sales would be $2 million/year rather than $1 million/year if his credit line had not been frozen.

If all I can find to counterweight my multi-billion dollar examples is a boogie-board entrepreneur and one called lake property loan, I'm going to have to conclude that the credit crunch is not significantly impacting the real economy. Given that the news media hungers so intensely for such examples yet still cannot produce them, what else can we conclude?

Do you have any examples?