Even if Ben Bernanke is right about the stress tests truly reflecting the “financial conditions” of the banks, it doesn’t matter much. Banks themselves are still worried that they won’t get paid back on old loans.

Within the last year, the true extent of the real estate debacle and ensuing credit crisis in the United States has become blatantly obvious.   But now there is a new phenomenon rearing its ugly head: a credit crisis of the individual that is hitting a large number of Americans straight in the pocketbook. The reason: credit providers have started to batten down the hatches.

It took a sub-prime/credit/derivatives debacle to make it happen, but it’s finally starting to dawn on some people that you can’t build a whole economy on the practice of moving money around.