The mid-August week we are living in, while important events are happening around us, takes away our memories and Olympic achievements, leaving our country alone with marginal discussions. Something that concerns us and will determine our destiny, but more and more often, it is our destiny to take a decisive role in processes such as suffering the consequences of other people’s decisions (suffering from their effects or benefiting from them). It is important to form wills. In an interconnected world, where specific and relative weights are determined primarily by historical and geographical factors, this is certainly true regardless of the color and power of a country. But the unexpected conditions of the era we live in still have their importance. Just as in the public debate, where politicians and the media are both creators and recipients of the country’s mood.

Recession risk

A quick look at the international and national newspapers will explain what I mean. For days now, since the stock market crash in early August, the world has been wondering about the risk of a recession that has been frightening the United States and, by definition, the entire world. Data from the real American economy point to a slowdown, which may even be longer, more persistent and painful than a single period. Markets fear that the Federal Reserve will be too cautious and slow in its interest rate cuts – too much for them. But as long as money remains expensive, consumption will remain low, increasing the risk of a recession. The weakness of the labor market seems to confirm these concerns. But inflation in the United States remains high, higher than in the Eurozone, which explains why production has been slow to ease the rapid and severe monetary tightening that central banks have taken over the last two years. The international media, including ours, are talking about this, and a significant part of the world’s near future will be played out on these issues. This is obviously one of the issues at the heart of the electoral debate regarding the American presidential elections and should occupy the agenda of all the ruling classes in the world, especially those with countries with high public debt and a very unequal economy geographically at their bases.

The eternal problem of beach resorts

Here, beyond the analyses of editors and economists, the issue has not actually reached the mouths of either the government or the opposition, or the politicians. It will be said that if politics speaks, we criticize it for not acting, if it is silent, we criticize it for not speaking. This is also true. However, there is a feeling that this neglect is not so much the result of the quiet diligence of the rulers or those who govern, but rather the result of indifference and cunning, taking advantage of the heat and popular distractions that are more effective than ever in August, to desire to do so. Moreover, in other files that are clearly and incredibly more relevant to the government’s electoral and political constituencies, there is no lack of verbal and legislative activism, on the contrary. Let us consider the case of the beach workers, who caused streams of ink and attracted great political attention with their two-hour mini-strike a few days ago. Our Martian, watching the world from afar, will ask why a small strike by a small company attracts so much attention. Because closing the umbrellas in the middle of August can make Italian voters fear the compromise of their elected representatives. And because this small company of tens of thousands of voters is very close to some members of the government majority and has a certain blackmail power. So strong that, to tell the truth, even if the left has been in power throughout these thirty years of debate, it has always obtained concessions and relaxations regarding European dictates. We have already learned from the papers of a government in fibrillation.

Small timeless lobbies

Compared to many other problems, this is certainly a small thing in economic terms: perhaps a few hundred million euros a year between tax evasion and the failure to collect renewals. There are much more serious things, it is true. But in addition to the correct idea that many insignificant issues, when put together, constitute a large public debt, there is another, more serious and important issue: the political issue of beach privileges is, more than anything else, a perfect metaphor for the public debt. Italian politics is the victim of small anachronistic lobbies. Every summer and with every change of European government, it returns to present itself in this way. Like the fire of a country that thinks of itself and is thought of by those who govern it as an infinite collection of petty interests, often in conflict with the common good and the common good. Like the inheritance of countless privileges from the past that do not allow us to think organically about the future, proposing an idea of ​​society that goes beyond what each small group considers essential for itself. After all, as the Olympics, a perfect universal event, come to a worldwide close and we contemplate the perfect global tragedy of an economic recession, we have dealt with several tens of thousands of participants who defied a supranational law. The law, which has been in effect for nearly three decades, continues to cling to its sand-filled buckets. The same person who regularly empties the hourglass of opportunities for a country that has no idea how its future has ended, or even started.

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