In true Panglossian spirit, I've been struggling amidst all the gloom to find reasons to be cheerful about 2009. It's not been easy, but for what they are worth, here's my top ten causes for celebration about the year ahead.

1. Low interest rates. For some householders on tracker products, the effective mortgage rate has already fallen to as low as 1.7%, making them hundreds of pounds a month better off depending on the size of the outstanding loan. This is because at the height of the mortgage bubble, some tracker products were offered at below bank rate, so desperate were lenders to persuade house owners to borrow from them.

If base rate sinks to zero, which is possible, these happy few will presumably be in the bizarre position of being paid by the lender for the privilege of taking the debt. Admittedly, not many will find themselves in such an Alice in Wonderland world, but most mortgage borrowers will find themselves quite a bit better off in some shape or form.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of savers. Despite what you read in the press, which paints Britons as a nation of profligate, debt crazed spenders, the number of net savers still outnumbers net borrowers by four to one, even if the borrowers more than make up the difference through the sheer size of their loans.

2. Lower house prices. House prices have already fallen by some 15% since their peak in September last year, and according to most predictions, will fall at least another 15% before they hit bottom. For the great bulk of us, this is excellent news, for unless you are a buy-to-let landlord, are planning to trade down or cash in your chips and exit the housing market altogether, nobody has any interest in constantly rising house prices.In the boom, housing came to be seen as an investment, or even a pension or a business. A return to the days of more affordable housing, seen for what it is — as a secure roof over your head — is very much to be welcomed.

3. Low inflation. Price inflation is falling with a speed nobody would have dreamt possible less than six months ago, when it was roaring away at more than 5%, and may even turn negative by the middle of next year. For those in secure jobs, this again means you are going to get better off, as wages are likely to continue rising, albeit not by much, even as prices are falling.

Lower prices will be at their most visible in gas and electricity bills, and at the pumps. The only reason energy prices haven't fallen already is that, somewhat stupidly you might think, companies bought their supplies forward at the inflated prices that still ruled last summer. If lower wholesale prices aren't feeding through to the consumer by the end of next month, we'll all want to know why.

4. I may have to eat my words on this one, but the stock market looks set for a substantial bounce, even if the year as a whole may be one of fluctuation. The past year has witnessed a profound bear market in equities and corporate bonds, but an equally dramatic bull market in Government bonds. I think I'm right in saying that never before have the two asset classes diverged to quite the same extreme degree.

The situation is either profoundly anomolous or indicative of a deep and prolonged depression in which companies default on a massive scale and the only safe place for your money is seen as government debt, however low the interest rate. As an optimist, I'm opting for the former explanation.

But it is not just blind faith that leads me to believe the cult of equity is still just about alive. The past year has witnessed a policy response from central banks and governments to the downturn of unprecedented proportions, with yet more expected from President elect Barak Obama. If it doesn't work, then there is little hope for any of us.

5. Fewer bankers and hedge fund managers. I for one see plenty of reasons to celebrate the contraction of the financial services industry and the end of Wall Street's bonus driven culture. The riches being generated in the City, or as it now appears, being conjured up like the antics of the illusionist out of nothing, had reduced those on more normal earnings to relative penury.

London and the South East were becoming almost prohibitively expensive places to live, while the arrogance of these self-styled masters of the universe that had made them so had become almost too much to bear. Their hubris may have produced misery for all, but at least we can all wallow in schadenfreud at their come uppance.

6. It's getting easier to hail a cab. A friend of mine used to swear blind that the best guide to economic activity was the taxi rank on London's St James. Most of the time it's empty, and when it's raining...well, neither love nor money will find you a cab. But as times get tough, the rank of empty taxis just gets bigger and bigger. The same is true of top London restaurants, where the waiting lists are getting shorter and the restauranteurs ever less snooty about who they give tables to.

7. More leisure time. For those that have lost their jobs, that is. But look on the bright side. Many find redundancy to be a blessing in disguise, enabling a complete change of career. For accountants and actuaries, there's lion taming, and for investment bankers and hedgies, a refreshing break at her majesty's pleasure. And if all else fails, there is always teaching.

8. No more share buybacks or M & A. One of the most ingenius mechanisms invented by bankers for wasting capital and loading the corporate world up with debt was the share buy-back, whereby companies were invited to spend their “surplus” capital buying up their own shares and then cancelling them.

This bizarrely vacuous use of hard earned money was meant to “maximise balance sheet efficiency” but rarely seemed to have any beneficial effect on the share price while ensuring for many that come the downturn the balance sheet was so efficient that there was nothing left in it to see the body corporate through the bad times. All that's ended now, and many companies that so liberally gave all their capital away are now being forced to ask for it all back again at far less advantageous prices.

An end to empire building mergers and asset stripping, leveraged buyouts seem equally desirable side effects of the recession. Still, the bankers always win one way or another. There may be no M & A, but there's a roaring trade in corporate restructuring.

9. The end of junk mail. Thank the Lord. All those begging letters inviting you to take on even more debt have mysteriously ceased.

10. No more Russians in Courcheval. A friend has just returned from a week's skiing and despite the crippling cost of euro parity, remarks that the slopes around Courcheval are pleasantly free of vulgar Russian billionaires.

This may have little to do with the credit crunch and the now plummeting oil price: two years ago one of their number was arrested for allegedly supplying prostitutes to his wealthy friends, and he vowed to take the Russian brigade out of the swanky French ski resort for good in retribution.

But whatever the cause, it seems a fine outcome, leaving the slopes free once again for senior British civil servants and all other genuine Europeans lucky enough still to be in a job.