A fast or "V-shaped" recovery would mean that, after all, most analysts of this crisis would be proven wrong and that, despite the damage to private financial wealth and to bank and corporate balance sheets, growth in private demand and financial sector lending is able to rebound along the lines of past "normal" business cycles. The driving force behind such a scenario would need to be a much faster than expected healing of the financial sector and its capacity to resume lending at more normal levels and conditions (for example through a much more radical restructuring and recapitalization of insolvent institutions using public funds than appears to have been politically feasible in many cases). Consumers and investors would also likely need to have "very short memories," taking a much more confident view of the future than would appear warranted by the dramatic events of 2008, continued uncertainties, and their own depleted net worth positions. There could be specific countries that follow this recovery pattern, but, given what we are observing in private consumption, investment, and credit markets, coupled with a proposed tightening of prudential and regulatory standards, it seems that this type of a recovery is less likely in general.