According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook the global economy will come to a grinding halt in 2009 with an expected growth rate of just .5%. Britain is forecast to be in the most vulnerable position of any advanced country to weather the economic storm. The revised estimate suggests that the UK will shrink by 2.8% this year, bearing a huge impact on employment, house prices, public finance and our businesses. Across the Atlantic the picture gets slightly better according to the IMF but the US will still shrink by 1.5%.
In Britain we started to see the signs of a straining economy back in 2008, when a number of companies entered administration or had to be rescued. It started in the banking sector in the early half of 2008 with Northern Rock. HBOS, Bradford and Bingley and RBS were to follow. In the US Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch, Citigroup joined in the financial crises.

Following the banking sector decline the UK retail sector decline has accelerated - Woolworths and MFI being examples of significant UK business no longer with us.