South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A December survey sponsored by the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank offers insights into the credit needs and experiences of businesses in the South (not including North Carolina). The survey suggests that a lack of sales, not unusually tight credit conditions, are dissuading firms from seeking credit. Additionally, most firms that are seeking credit report being able to access it. Reports the Atlanta Fed:

So, how did businesses surveyed respond? Slightly more than half the respondents said that they had sought to obtain a loan or line of credit from a bank in the last six months. The primary reasons given by those seeking credit were to replace an existing loan (cited by 50 percent of those respondents) and/or to obtain additional working capital (cited by 45 percent of those respondents).
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The degree of difficulty firms felt they had in obtaining credit was mixed, with about 60 percent of respondents saying they were able to obtain all or most of the bank credit they sought. The small size of the survey (206 respondents) limits the accuracy of any sector-by-sector comparisons. However, it is interesting to note that construction firms stood out as the business type that had the greatest difficulty having their demand for financing satisfied, with 70 percent of them saying they were unable to obtain the funding they sought. That percentage compares with 50 percent of small manufacturers surveyed and 25 percent of retailers responding they were unable to obtain the funding they desired.
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Of those businesses that had not sought credit during the last six months, the dominant reason given was poor sales/revenue (cited by 55 percent of those respondents). Other reasons for not seeking additional credit included sufficient cash reserves.

Although this survey is neither national nor definitive in scope, it points to an economy hampered by a lack of demand. Writes the Atlanta Fed:

To the extent that the firms in our survey are representative, it appears most going concerns have been able to obtain all or most of the credit they need. What they don’t have are customers.