Here are ten likely themes that business people and investors should be ready to anticipate, exploit or hedge against in the coming year.

1 Credit is going to be in short supply. Of all the business trends of 2008, this is the one likely to require the most radical adjustment. The credit tap, which has been gushing at full spate for ten years, will be turned down to a trickle. Good businesses with strong balance sheets will be able to borrow; others will find credit lines withdrawn, or not renewed, or renewed but with tighter covenants or costlier terms.

For blue chips using the bond markets or small firms wanting bank loans or clients buying on tick, the message is going to be the same. After years of easy money, expect to have to fight harder for credit and pay more for it.

2 Cash is going to be king. Cashed-up firms are going to be at a significant advantage, both in terms of their general funding costs and in their ability to move quickly to snap up assets. Nimble opportunists with ready cash are going to be able to take advantage of asset fire sales. Strong companies will abandon share buybacks, while weak ones will be forced to hold or cut dividends. For the first time in years, the balance of power will shift from borrowers to savers.

3 Consumers are going to feel poorer. Despite falling base rates, many are going to see mortgage bills going up as they remortgage on less attractive terms. Higher tax and utility bills will shrink disposable incomes further, but it is falling house prices that will really sap confidence. The free ride from rising property values is over. Big-ticket purchases will be deferred.

4 Employees are going to be more accommodating. The incessant tug-of-war between labour and capital will shift a notch capital’s way as unemployment and the fear of unemployment grows. Unions will be less aggressive in pushing for pay rises. A similar trend will occur in the public sector, where Gordon Brown faces his first year as Prime Minister squaring up to public sector unions in the annual wages round.

5 Employers are going to be less paternalistic. Employers will find it easier to resist wage rise demands. The trickle of employers seeking to sever links with their final-salary pension schemes by getting insurers to buy them out will turn into a flood.

6 Investors are going to be more discerning and more curious about downside risks, especially in the more esoteric, opaque and illiquid asset classes. We shall learn who ended up with the several hundred billions of loss-making sub-prime assets still so far unaccounted for. That will concentrate minds.

7 Governments are going to be less pro-business as they respond to the discovery by voters that not all the economic gains of the past few years have been built on firm foundations. Brace for tougher regulation and for higher taxes, as previously buoyant receipts from corporation tax and national insurance falter.

8 More frauds are going to be exposed. Every downturn unmasks the rogues, as they can no longer access the cash to keep their scams going.

9 Inflation is going to drop down the priority list. The ensuing relaxation of monetary policy will bring it back up again, but that’s a problem for 2009-10.

10 In the face of falling asset prices, schemes of all kinds to buck the inconvenient laws of supply and demand will be hatched, and will fail. We have already seen the US Treasury’s super-SIV plan flop. Closer to home, commercial property funds are banning redempions – postponing but not avoiding the final reckoning. Expect more self-delusion.

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