A corner shop that has been there for many years. Now on its last legs as big shiny supermarkets take over the clients.
A small bar in a village core which has never seen more than 20 persons inside it. Yet its owner and bartender keep it clean and open for the ever dwindling group of patrons.
It used to be a family house where a family grew up until everyone went his or her way. Now it lies closed, forlorn and neglected and people willing to buy seem to have disappeared.
The business had been in the family for years. It still survives, but barely as it battles the onslaught of newer and bigger enterprises with deeper pockets.
One could go on and on.
We normally think in macro-economic terms even when speaking about our minuscule country. Which is a very valid point of view. But we must never forget that the great figures and statistics hide behind them so many stories of people, small people, small stories, small lives. Which matter a lot for the persons themselves.
Whatever the overall figures and statistics say, if you get a country where small people are not doing well at all, it is like getting a six-cylinder car which fires only on two.
There may be enough reasons to look at the big picture but there are equally valid reasons for looking at things on the micro level. If a substantial amount of people in a community are not happy or lead fulfilling lives, it makes no difference if the country gets its macro-economic figures right.
Right at this moment, there are countries - one thinks of Spain just as an example - which is said by people to be doing well after it emerged from the dark shadows of the crisis, but then, on closer examination, one finds that the economy has bounced back because of export figures and at the same time unemployment is still massive, especially among young people.
Just as the causes of these failures are varied, so too are any solutions. In some cases, the deterioration of business is probably a long-term effect which should have been tackled years ago and even then in some or many cases it is a question of a business model becoming obsolete.
In other cases, the motivation may have become feeble or dead and once that happens there is nothing much one can do.
In other cases, the government and/or entities such as banks, can do a lot to help out. But neither the government nor the banks are today in the old Father Christmas mould.
One cannot emphasise enough the need to carry out proper studies before one makes an investment or starts a business. In the cases of shops, for instance, or bars which open within months of each other and near each other, it is obvious they will crowd each other out and force each other to cut costs and/or prices thus beggaring each other.
In many cases, businesses struggle on because they do not have to service a bank loan and/or have a primary job so they can keep this as a secondary one. But those who have commitments with a bank must keep up with their commitments, which, if the going gets tough will find it all the harder just to keep up with interest payments.
At the same time, however, for all that we have been saying, the private sector, for all the heartache it carries, is still a vital resource for the country as a whole. Just as we used to have a job for life mentality, so we used also to have a mentality that frowns on failures. But a country such as the US, which has found the way to growth, thrives on a private sector that includes and accepts failure as a pre-requisite of success. One learns more from one's failures that one thinks possible.