The hope is that the package will help stoke consumer demand, which has all but dried up in the country's worst economic crisis in its history.

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But the trade body for the manufacturers of radiotherapy machines has told the BBC that instead of seeing more business, it has all but dried up.

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The commercial paper market represents the short-term loans that corporations issue to one another, a market which has now all but dried up as banks and firms fear lending money to a potential defaulter.

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Private investment has all but dried up.

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Instead, from August 9th, liquidity has dried up across all wholesale markets, making no distinction between loans of different quality, for much longer than even the most extreme forecast.

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Perhaps more importantly, borrowing that much on wholesale markets is neither a stable or prudent way to fund any bank - as the UK taxpayers found out to their cost when Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS all went to the brink of collapse after their access to wholesale funds dried up in 2007-8.

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