But some businesspeople said the credit squeeze was growing worse.
Health care costs and health insurance present the clearest case of "middle-class squeeze," as growing numbers of companies decline to offer insurance at all.
Water supplies there are already squeezed by growing populations, said Jonas Minton, the deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources.
Isis is being squeezed by growing military pressure from its many adversaries, but these remain disunited and hostile to each other so, for the moment, the overall stalemate continues.
But Mr. Thompson could also sound downright sympathetic to the bureaucrats he has found at the Health Care Financing Administration -- "some great people," he said, who are squeezed by growing responsibilities, limited resources, and an ancient computer system.
The proposal is the type of relatively inexpensive but politically potent initiative that appeals to White House officials at a time when they are squeezed by growing federal budget deficits.
Nobody grows or squeezes more oranges than Brazil, where orange trees now outnumber people and 400,000 workers rely on oranges for their livelihoods.
As gravity squeezes the cloud, it grows so hot that it begins to shine and a new star is born, but one powered by gravity rather than nuclear activity.
But after a racist bombing in a Moscow market killed a dozen people in August, Mr Putin's remarks were at best inadvisable; and in what is however much some ethnic Russians might wish otherwise a multi-ethnic country, potentially disastrous.So, in a different way, might be the growing squeeze on foreign energy firms.
Meanwhile, as protesters themselves feel squeezed, their urge to rampage grows greater.
