Whither originate and distribute?

Some argue the crisis in structured credit markets signals the demise of the originate-and-distribute model of banking, but this fails to take into account the pattern of all revolutions, argues David Rowe

In a comment I wrote in 2002, I cited Thomas Wurster, an early advocate of the profound impact the internet would have on business models and organisational structures.¹ In the aftermath of the dot.com implosion, he made an important point about the pattern of revolutions: these rarely evolve in an uninterrupted trajectory. One consistent pattern is that, at some point, a manic phase ends in the revolution eating its own children. Robespierre, the French Revolution's 'sea-green incorruptible'