Rumour has it, a senior property analyst told me last week, that at least one big UK bank is no longer issuing loans on commercial real estate, or even rolling over existing ones. If true, I am not particularly surprised. After all, the banks' exposure to the sector is at record levels, and property values are sliding.

But this raises a wider issue. Suppose, even when the immediate credit crisis has subsided, the banks are too enfeebled to resume normal lending. Where does this leave corporate borrowers overall?