Proceedings at this national roundtable kicked off with the participants acknowledging that the illicit trade in goods and services, today more than ever manifested by smuggling and, more importantly, by product piracy, is an endemic and growing phenomenon in both Italy and Europe.
Kick-starting discussions at this ASL seminar was the observation that the consumer of today is an increasingly fluid figure that resists interpretation pursuant to paradigms superseded through the radical changes brought about by new technologies, as well as through an economic crisis that has altered individuals’ priorities and given rise to new patterns of consumption.
Discussion at this roundtable event got underway with the participants citing recent figures indicating that 70% of Italians anticipate they will have to cut down on spending in 2009. The figure was 21% in 2001, 29% in 2002 and 42% in 2004. At a time of international crisis, this growing trend is forcing businesses to rethink their business models.
“This plague has been a great scourge, but it has also served as a good broom, for it has swept away some, my children, from whom I never thought we would free ourselves… If things always worked out this way with the plague, it would really be a sin to speak ill of it”. It was in these words that the character of Don Abbondio, in Manzoni’s The Betrothed, described the epidemic that had brought about the demise of Don Rodrigo.
