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Istat certified that the Italian economy did well this summer, even better than forecasts, photographing what is technically called “rebound” with a round + 16.1% compared to the spring months, the ones in which we have all been locked at home for lockdown. The news can only please you obviously. To put it in the Catalan way, it is always better for things to go well than bad. The Minister of Economy, Roberto Gualtieri, was enthusiastic about the data, highlighting how this is also due to the government’s economic policy choices. A line on which the Pd secretary Nicola Zingaretti was then promptly inserted who “spoke of an injection of confidence and encouragement to move forward”. Sorry to go against the tide but we should be a little more cautious, because the awakening of production activities this summer risks being a classic Pyrrhic victory for the Italian economy. For two orders of reasons, intertwined with each other.
First of all, we must remember that in economics, as in the life of all of us, what really matters is more the future than the past. Well, the GDP estimates for the fourth quarter are far from positive, there is a risk of zero growth as a Christmas present under the tree of Italian families. Confesercenti – not surprisingly an association that represents one of the categories most affected by the squeeze on Sunday and even more by the presumed future lockdowns – gives precise numbers. “The summer rebound above expectations is immediately affected by the difficulties of the fourth quarter – notes the president Patrizia De Luise -. According to our estimates, the second wave and the restrictions imposed on businesses will burn another 10 billion in consumption ”. Then comes Confindustria’s confirmation. According to its Research Center, industrial production recorded its first stop in September, after four months of robust growth. And despite the fact that in the third quarter there is a rebound compared to the second, “the fourth could mark a new fall in activity”. So the summer blaze has not only died down but has already given way to a frost in full swing. So much so that Minister Gualtieri himself had to admit it, hoping however that the setback, the effects of which will also be felt for next winter, will not be too heavy for the GDP. “If in the coming weeks more drastic measures to contain the epidemic were to be used (read local or national lockdowns, ed), we would in any case start from a position of proven solidity. GDP growth in 2021 could be lower than expected in the Nadef programmatic framework (6%, ed), but the recovery would only be postponed, not jeopardized “.
Here, however, we arrive at the second reason why we must not make too many fancy flights. The summer rebound in fact is above all the result of three months in which factories, offices, companies, bars, restaurants, hotels, tour operators and so on have reopened and worked substantially at full capacity, almost as if Covid had been completely eradicated. Just remember how at some point this summer some Regions even allowed the reopening of discos, only to force the government to quickly intervene and to close them equally quickly. Well, this vitality of the economy, this desire to start again as before, if in the short term it led to a surge in GDP – + 16.1% in fact – in the medium term it can be said that it did more harm than good. Because it contributed to the awakening of the virus, which remained active throughout the summer before exploding exponentially this fall, as shown by both studies by physicist Roberto Battiston that from the last report of the ISS commented by Rezza and Brusaferro. And here we come to the vicious circle between reopening and lockdown, or to the devil’s alternative between health and economy: restarting the engines at full speed unfortunately also leads to the restart of the contagion and therefore, within a few months, to the need for a new lockdown. , local or national, and consequently to a new stop in growth. With the feeling that, at least until the majority of the population is vaccinated (and therefore not before autumn 2021), that the trend of the economy will look more like those graphs that the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology disseminates after an earthquake: it splashes up and down seamlessly. In short, let’s get ready for the roller coaster. And therefore no euphoria for a quarter that is particularly good, nor depression for the following one that returns to zero, if not even below.
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