Felt the economic pinch in LA

The shopping malls and stores in LA over the past weekend seemed pretty slow and the locals didn't stop complaining about the economy and cut down in services. They even cut down the security checkers at LAX, so the check in line ups were long. Spoke to some people in the home improvement business with projects frozen because banks aren't giving credit. Seems like the Obama TARP money didn't make its way to the local banks, if it did, they're certainly not lending. And while home prices in LA have dropped, prices of the Beverly hills homes in the hills have gone up. All this is hard for an outsider to understand in a city dripping with wealth.,