Just imagine if the Lockdown returned tomorrow morning. No jobs, closed businesses, no turnover. Just imagine how many businesses would still be willing to hang on and stand. Putting in lost funds again. I think none. They have all already forgotten what happened. We will come out better they said…. More than 390,000 businesses closed permanently in 2020 due to Covid and collapse of consumption. Over 43,000 small business closed in 2022. By the first half of 2023, 120,000 businesses could close. That was the estimate contained by the Confcommercio study office in the September Economic Outlook. 1 in 3 businesses are at risk of closure by the end of the year. Along the same lines, OECD data (also released in September 2022), world growth is expected to slow further in 2023 while inflation is expected to gradually ease.

THE SHORT MEMORY OF THE ORDINARY MAN

Yet, incredibly, many are acting as if nothing is wrong. Forgetting that so many companies have not yet recovered from the 2020 annus horribilis. The Italian economy was brought to its knees by Covid and is now crippled by inflation, the energy and commodity crisis. Nevertheless, many figures at various levels act as if nothing has happened, as if we live in a new golden age where money is given to you. A fairy world where you work for free or where for two cases of wine I’ll put your product in a Netflix webseries [Check out the article where I talked about win-win partnerships]. A land of Cuccagna where we are all better and more generous where we bestow skills and time for free. And most importantly strictly meeting any deadline demands, right on cue! One really wonders what kind of world certain individuals think they live in. It just seems like a collective amnesia that does not take into account how the pandemic period has greatly damaged the economy and the social-psychological fabric. Taking the survival of businesses almost for granted. Stefano Cigana