Credit crunch and Hard times

Credit crunch noun - A state in which there is a short supply of cash to lend to businesses and consumers and interest rates are high.

Hard times and credit crunch are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Hard times" instead a noun phrase "Credit crunch".

Hard times noun - A time of difficulty.

Credit crunch and hard times are semantically related. Sometimes you can replace phrase "Credit crunch" with "Hard times", this phrases are similar.