"The economy was weak and has been weak for some time. But in September, we went from a credit squeeze to a credit crisis to a credit panic.
"The banks are using every excuse in the book with even our best customers to say no," he said. "That's going to be the banking industry's new marketing slogan: Just say no," he said.
AutoNation executives said that although 90% of their customers usually get car loans approved, only 60% were approved last month. Company sales, which typically run 550,000 vehicles a year, have fallen by nearly one-third.
Tracy Dearman is head of HSM Realty, a 10-person San Francisco real estate sales and management company founded by her grandmother to serve the city's African American community.
"The rub for us is that even very qualified potential buyers won't pull the trigger [and make a home purchase] because they are afraid," she said. "The news is so scary I've gotten calls from clients saying, 'Tracy, should we pull our money out of the bank?' "
Dearman said that company sales have dropped by 25% and that she has had to lay off one employee. She said the firm is getting by managing property for existing owners.
The dilemma that Jackson, Dearman and hundreds of millions of other Americans face is that even though many of the economy's current problems are rooted in the financial crisis, those problems will only be eased -- but by no means erased -- if the crisis ends.
In part, that's because the financial crisis has gone on for so long that it has sunk into the lives of Americans far, far beyond Wall Street, convincing them that this time is different than previous periods of upheaval and that they must change their behavior.
The extent to which people have been convinced is apparent in the unexpectedly steep fall in the miles that Americans drive their cars in the wake of recent gas price hikes, as well as in a 13% plunge in Las Vegas' July gambling revenues.
"It's the seventh straight month of decline," said Nevada Gaming Control Board spokesman Frank Streshley. "We've never seen that before."
Once people have changed their behavior, they seldom go back to their old ways quickly. "They are not going to be changed all at once or by one program," such as Washington's new financial rescue package, Kubarych, the Unicredit economist, said.
