Everyone is focused on the need for banks "to start lending again". The current crisis is the result of a debt and credit binge (and we're not even at the hangover phase, we're vomiting into the toilet bowl so to speak). The solution cannot be more credit. But we don't know how to run our economy without credit. Unsecured credit such as overdraft facilities, credit cards and compnaies' revolving credit lines (used for operating expenses) are being cut. In the case of secured credit, mortgages are a dodgy proposition since property prices can be expected to continue to fall. As to project finance... Jerome can speak to this, but if the expectation is a 5-year recession it is very difficult to justify lending, too!

"No return to 'business as usual'" is right.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith