Credit is the grease that helps keep the wheels of the economy spinning. And as credit gets harder to come by, some businesses are starting to squeak.
"Everybody is, I think, very gun-shy," says Kryson Bratton, owner of Piper Whitney Construction in Houston. "We've got the R-word — recession — floating around and sometimes it feels like the purse strings get tighter."
Bratton has been trying to get financing for a Bobcat tractor and a IMER mixing machine to expand her business installing driveways and soft playground surfaces. But banks have been reluctant to lend her money.
