But also, they include cases where lenders have extended credit when it would have been wiser not to.

The crisis at European refiner Petroplus deepened on Thursday after lenders extended a freeze on its borrowing.

Since the realizable sales price in this case might be much lower, the maximum loan many lenders would extend would be much lower.

Japanese lenders have extended service hours for retail clients and branched out into new and more specialized investment banking services.

For additional steep fees, the lender will usually extend the loan for up to one more year.

The firm still has no peer in its ability to influence whether lenders and companies extend business credit.

As a boom leads to euphoria, Minsky said, banks and other commercial lenders extend credit to ever more dubious borrowers, often creating new financial instruments to do the job.

Credit-card companies and lenders will not extend credit to consumers in the danger zone whose payments amount to 20 percent to 30 percent of their gross income.

Mr. Greenspan went on to note that household debt burdens had been rising for the last half-century as lenders extended credit to wider segments of the population.

And worse, lenders won't even extend existing loans on perfectly healthy properties for borrowers with perfect payment records.