"There's not a banker in America that wouldn't fight tooth and nail for good loans."

The boom left the country with too many office buildings and too few good loans.

Potentially solvent banks will make too few good loans.

So the banks are running off good loans to provide for the increased bad loans.

Analysts added that more good loans may go bad depending on the Japanese economy's direction.

What's a good loan for the hypothetical average home buyer?

Banks thought they were good loans; the Tamposis thought the same.

"The banks have more money than in quite a long time, and if you have a good industrial loan, they are anxious to lend."

Banks, in particular, are already awash in cash, but cannot find good new loans to make.

What bank mergers won't do, of course, is make bad loans into good loans.