The year ahead for ... global groups.

Maurice Levy thinks that although the UK will suffer, and redundancies are inevitable, the recession will not mean the end of consumerism.

Life will never be the same again, people told me when I went to the US in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers. That's true - but only to a tiny degree. Obviously there are tighter security checks for travellers but, that apart, nothing much else is different.

The fact is that changing people's minds in a profound way is very difficult. I recall the 1974 recession, when we were told that people would drive only cars that were practical, that they would no longer be concerned about image. That idea lasted 'the time of a cherry', as we say in France.

I suspect we'll have a similar hiccup this time. Nevertheless, there will be some significant differences between this recession and those that have gone before.

The last one came from the real market and the real economies. This one began in US real estate. It was like a television series. Each week there was a new episode. Then it hit the real economy and it's hurting.

In previous recessions there were still lots of reserves in the financial system. This time, billions of dollars, euros and pounds have just vanished. People buying pensions or investing in stock and mutual funds have seen 50 per cent of their plans disappear.

The other aspect of this recession is that it's a global crisis that's changing the view of the world economy. In the past, everything coming from the state was wrong and the market was right.