Afghan businessman Shoaib Barak is struggling to pay his workers and suppliers, unable to access funds from a banking system crippled by the freezing of the nation's overseas assets. They, in turn, can't pay their bills -- and so the country's economic woes trickle down and hurt everyone along an unbroken chain of misery. To avoid giving the Taliban access to Afghanistan's reserves, Washington froze an estimated $10 billion dollars held abroad after the hardline Islamists seized power on August 15. Barak's cashflow crisis illustrates the problems faced by tens of thousands of Afghans who simply can't access most of their money. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES