As Barbie Izlar and her friend Andrea Bloch sat on a Ninth Street bench in Durham Monday, they said they were sick of hearing about the bad economy.

"Barbie here has eight children," Bloch said. "Christmas and the festive times are a little tight."

So, as we countdown to 2009, even if they're sick of hearing about the economy, the two part-time workers know it's impacting their lives.

"I see it in almost everything," Bloch said. "I mean: my car is almost 12 years old."

Izlar's family cut back on eating out.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to travel this year," she said. "And I love to travel!"

At least one expert says it could get worse before it gets better.

"We've seen, unfortunately, the tip of the iceberg," said Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University. "What we will see are more bankruptcies."

Harvey said troubles in the auto industry will spread to others.

"We'll see commercial real estate firms like mall owners - they've already been sniffing for some bailout money," he said. "But we're going to see large-scale bankruptcies on that side."

"The Duke CFO Magazine survey, which was just released, suggested that another 5 percent could be shed. So that's going to push us to double-digit unemployment in 2009."

He said we won't see a light at the end of the tunnel until there is some sign of life in the housing market.

"The government is doing whatever they can ... they've got the printing press going like crazy to try and print their way out of this crisis," he said. "I'm skeptical that bailing out everybody is the solution. It creates longer-term problems because we have to pay for all of this eventually."

Yet, he said the troubled economy could mean a buyer's market for consumers.

"One thing I predict we'll see is negative-interest financing," Harvey said. "Interest rates are so low right now that zero percent financing is no big deal. So - come in and buy the product - and we will pay you two percent."

Campbell hopes, by the end of 2009, we'll be talking about something different.

"I am hopeful that we can work off some of the inventory of new and existing homes, that we can get the worst part out of the way early in the year," he said. "We're going to see a spike in unemployment. We're going to see a spike in bankruptcy filings and by the end of the year, things - hopefully - will calm down."

Plus: North Carolina should fare better than others.

"We're relatively immune to this crisis for two reasons: the first reason is we didn't have a housing bubble," he said. "So that means the drop in housing prices are far less than the national average."

"The second reason that's specific to this area is that we have a set of industries that are relatively immune to business cycle fluctuates. Things like education, medical, biotech, [pharmaceutical] - all of these don't go as deep-down in a recession."