"The banking system looks like a slaughterhouse," said Satyajit Das, an Australian-based banking consultant who was in Winnipeg for Jory Capital on Tuesday. "The financial institutions have lost money and capital and can't really function. They can't lend, they can't grow. They are hunkering down and battening down the hatches. The next part of the equation, the really tricky part, is what is going to happen in the real economy."

"It is going to start to put stress on real businesses," he said. "At the least they won't be able to invest."

"People have not got their pension statements and not seen the value of savings, said Das. "At some point, that will register in the next six to 12 months and it will have huge behavioural consequences for expenditure."