For some time (a couple of years, I think) I have been blogging about the problems in the global economy. My belief has been that with the transition from national economies to one single global and connected economy some sectors would find themselves in a boom while others were crashing.

At the moment everything is crashing, and substantially, I believe, because of the role that the consumer has now. Everything is connected to consumer demand. And consumer confidence has not just been shaken, it has been ripped apart.

Now Toyota, that mainstay of Japanese excellence in manufacturing, has announced that it is going to close its factories for a period of time so that it can clear inventory.

There is a growing view by economists such as Paul Krugman that unless the US can get things restarted domestically and fast,  the US will be headed for depression rather than recession.

While in Australia there is a tendency to think that we are insulated from the rest of the world, the reality is that we remain connected. So we need to think about which industries will continue to boom in a depressed global economy and which ones will wither, and which ones can pull themselves away from the brink.

The one thing that we can be sure of is that if industries keep on doing the same things that they have in spite of the signals they will go down faster. The music business is the best example that I can think of in that regard.

There is no doubt that the recorded music industry is being diminished substantially. But regardless of that, it still has huge resources financially and huge momentum. And live music continues to generate record revenues. So the music business from a macro point of view is doing fine. And since P2P file sharing continues apace, you have to figure that consumer demand hasn't dissipated.

So the issue is that the recorded music business is just not where the market is right now. The current problems with revenue leakage from P2P may disappear as mobile devices continue to build momentum. In that environment it is a lot easier to extract revenue from consumers.

But the problem now with a global economic meltdown may change the game again with some unforeseen consequences. Consumers are going to be looking to save money wherever they can. As more adult consumers realize that their kids are consuming more media than ever using P2P without paying for it, I can only think that older demographic consumers are going to get turned on to the same P2P websites that their kids are using. Once the baby boomers really embrace P2P you could see music sales fall off the same cliff that has hit car sales. And once people have learned how to use technology to their own advantage, it is hard to get them to go back...

Rupert Murdoch's great talent is to always provide the media and reportage that the consumer wants, whatever it is. It seems to me that the music business needs a dose of Murdoch to get it through the hard times. Get out in front of the crowd... That means embracing revolutionary business models, and counterintuitive ideas.

Now what areas of business are going to boom in a depression?

It seems to me that there will be several kinds of business that will do extraordinarily well now... First there will be the established businesses that provide the things that people need more in bad times than in good - the substance abuse businesses legal and illegal: when times are tough people will want to get out of it more. So they will drink more booze, smoke more dope, and pop more pills.

Remember when the buzz word was cocooning - I believe that people will really embrace this concept now more than ever before. So people will read more books on how to live more sustainably, grow their own food, cook at home etc.

What other sectors of businesses will be successful? What are the bets that we can take where the risk is mitigated?