Editor's Note: An inauspicious beginning

Optimism is usually in abundance at this time of the year.

With most still indulging in the last breath of the lazy summer holiday hangover and memories of barbeques at the beach and drinks by the pool still fresh there is every reason to lie back and just believe.

The mistakes and misdemeanours which blotted last year's page all but forgotten, the slate is clean and the new year and all its possibilities stretch out before us like an open buffet just waiting to be devoured.

Unfortunately though this is no ordinary year.

With the very real threat of global recession already tainting our time away from the office, we returned back to our working lives to be greeted with the news 2009 had already claimed its first casualty.

While I'm sure footwear giant Figgins Group quite rightly began 2008 with the same hopes and dreams of enduring economic success as the rest of us it was not to be.

Just 12 months later the Melbourne-based wholesale and retail group found itself in the horrible position of having to sell one brand, restructure another and close all 43 of its Shoo Biz stores, potentially taking away the livelihood of some 220-odd staff in the process.

And the news doesn't get much better for the rest of us scratching to make a living out of an industry so reliant on consumer confidence.

While January 2008 saw listed brands Gazal and Specialty Fashion Group flying high, acquiring new brands and streamlining their already profitable businesses, they too have been forced to begin the new year with profit downgrades and what must be the ultimate sacrifice for any business owner, staff redundancies.

And unfortunately just like mice, for every beleaguered business we know about there are another dozen or so we don't.

But while we can't reverse the plight of most businesses with their backs to the wall, or dictate what financial climate the next 12 months can bring, we can have a say in how the sector as a whole moves forward with the federal government calling for submissions on its recommendations set out in its TCF Review report 'Building Innovative Capability'.

Yes the timing is lousy, yes the miserable Senator Carr only gave us a four-week window in which to cobble together responses before the January 29 deadline and yes most of us have far more pressing matters to attend to.

But while I can't guarantee the government will act on your suggestions, I can promise you they won't if they don't know what it is the industry really needs to ensure its future is viable.

And hey look on the bright side, by the time you read this there'll only be 348 more big sleeps until the next new year.