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There will also be winners among retailers, as the hunt for good value replaces the pre-credit crunch splurge and the retail barometer swings to thrifty from spendthrift. Already Lidl and Aldi are gaining in prominence.

Life will get harder for restaurant, bar and pub owners as people increasingly opt to stay home with a copy of Delia Smith's Frugal Food. But this is good news for all forms of cheap entertainment, whether the cinema or online video-on-demand portals, and Chinese and Indian takeaways.

Soaring fuel prices and rising costs coupled with fewer passengers forced several airlines under last year but travel agents remained relatively unscathed. Not so in this year. Predictions move from gloomy to apocalyptic, with some analysts predicting a “bloodbath” in 2009 as widespread job cuts force consumers to axe holidays.

In the financial sector it is unanimously agreed that things will never be the same. The big players have either gone the way of Lehman or been humbled by state bailouts. As the remaining banks spend the year trying to claw back lost public confidence, regulation will be tightened.

The Financial Services Authority is due to announce this month whether its ban on short-selling is to be abandoned or continued.

New regulation could see changes to puffy pay packages and bonuses for bankers in an attempt to reduce excessive risk-taking, as well as greater transparency in the more mysterious reaches of finance, such as credit default swaps. Hedge funds will find themselves under increased scrutiny.

Lloyds TSB is due to finalise its takeover of HBOS this month and tens of thousands of jobs are expected to go over the next few years. Further cuts are also on the horizon at Royal Bank of Scotland.

The high street banks will report their 2008 results in February and March, with most expected to reveal further losses from their deteriorating loan books. Some may even be forced to raise fresh capital. Another certainty: with the State now a 59 per cent shareholder in RBS there will be plenty of parliamentary hearings on the best use of taxpayers' money.

In the world of media it is hard to look much beyond the end of this month, which is when Lord Carter of Barnes, the communications minister, unveils his Digital Britain review, the first significant media policy update since 2002. A shake-up of public service broadcasting funding is expected to include how the BBC is financed and how to keep Channel 4 going, given that Ofcom has given warning it faces an annual £100million deficit by 2012.

No one expects a happier picture for traditional advertising, already dented by the 2008 downturn. Internal projections at ITV forecast a fall of between 12 per cent and 18 per cent in January, and the only question is how long the downturn lasts.

However, on a brighter note, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, predicts that, while old media will contract, digital, internet and mobile advertising revenue will grow.

Oil, which languished below $40 a barrel at the end of the year after hitting $147 in late July, will rise, returning closer to the $100 levels it started at in January 2008. Gold, which rose towards $900 an ounce in December 2008, will fall to about $600.

The global motor industry will struggle. Honda in the UK is due to close for two months from March and Toyota will close for two weeks in February and March. Detroit is battling for its survival, with Chrysler, General Motors and to a lesser extent Ford relying on President-elect Barack Obama to keep them rolling. Other car manufacturers are working on short time but inevitably job cuts are expected to start hitting the industry.

The pharmaceutical industry, already suffering from reduced drug pipelines and the loss of patents on blockbuster medicines, is in for a shake-up this year. Mr Obama has promised a sweeping healthcare reform Bill in his first 100 days and a new US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, arguably the most powerful position in the global pharmaceuticals industry, will be appointed.

In the UK, the Government's Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme will reduce drug prices by 3.9 per cent this year and a further 1.9 per cent in 2010, knocking companies' British revenues.

As the pall of gloom spreads from sector to sector, observers are left with the feeling that if the year ends flat it would be a success. However, such austerity does not herald the end of the world's financial system, as last year's headlines feared.

Banks will soldier on but we will borrow less and save more. Shoes will be repaired, not thrown away; Porsche sales will continue to fall but not disappear and bicycle sales will rise; we will eat less meat and more vegetables.

The 2008 credit crunch may leave in its wake a more frugal, more realistic, if slightly sanctimonious, era. Well, until the next bubble begins.

Explore Economics

• Pre-Budget Report 2009

• Budget 2009

• World Economic Forum

• The Times MPC

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