Many also had histories of credit problems that lowered their credit scores.
But that obscures an undercurrent of credit problems.
The core bank is being denied new capital (and business opportunities) because of serious credit problems in riskier parts of the enterprise.
Ms. Falk noted, for example, that Cuba's wheat-for-sugar barter arrangement with France had faltered because of Cuban credit problems, which could lead Mr. Castro to seek an alternative.
Ms. Silva, a schoolteacher who stopped working when she had her first child in 2006, said she had been blacklisted with employers because of her credit problems stemming from her debt to La Polar, and she and her husband had been denied a mortgage.
Wall Street suffered through some stomach-churning days last week because of worries about how credit problems that began in the market for subprime mortgages might spread to other types of loans.
But the difference in interest rates, or spread, between the top-rated commerical paper and that issued by companies with lower ratings has grown because of concerns about potential credit problems among smaller, riskier issuers.
Because of her past credit problems her loan had a variable interest rate that started at 20.15 percent and was set to the prime rate plus 11.9percentt, far above the national average.
The company, which is based in Tulsa, Okla., said it would lose 63 cents to 73 cents a share in the second quarter, largely because of constraints its credit problems have placed on its energy trading business.
But because of what Mr. Kaufman described as "some credit problems in the past," the banks to which they applied for a mortgage turned them down.
At the same time, the Fed's interest-rate cuts will not work as well because today's credit problems are caused by lenders' fear of risk rather than a shortage of money to lend.
