services that require more of a grass - roots presence and a greater capacity to target action to non - standardized needs. the state retains a comparative advantage in the provision of undifferentiated public services, such as compulsory schooling, basic health care, and social security. the non - profit and voluntary sector can play a major role in supplementing public programmes and in broadening the area of social protection. it must become a mechanism for soliciting and raising additional private resources, over and above government appropriations for these purposes, in order to meet those needs that state action is inefficient in facing. italy ’ s unbalanced economic development has been accompanied by phenomena of social distress and has not succeeded, to date, in narrowing regional disparities. the growth and spread of social solidarity, volunteer service and the entire non - profit sector is highly desirable to reinforce the pact of mutual support binding the national community at the institutional level and to make for fruitful, complementary relations between private and public social welfare activities. delay in the development of the non - profit sector and excessive reduction of the social role of the state, albeit for budgetary reasons, could place the whole burden of assisting society ’ s most vulnerable members on the family. owing to the changes in society, the family is no longer capable, unaided, of dealing with the complicated problems posed by the modern world. 3. the fight against usury : a case of complementarity between government and voluntary action solidarity means disinterested assistance to those in need. the traditional ethical condemnation of lending at interest, found in the old testament and in aristotle, can be traced back to the ethical principle of solidarity whereby one must help the needy person, not take advantage of his need. leviticus reads : “ and if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee ; then thou shalt relieve him ; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner ; that he may live with thee. take thou no usury of him, or increase.... thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. ” 5 the passage from condemnation of charging of interest to the needy to the outright condemnation of interest as such, found in other books of the old testament, 6 is logical in the historical context of a static, agrarian economy in which recourse to credit is not a normal event for anyone engaging in economic

the private sector is estimated to have risen by about two years to around 61. working life will have to be extended, partly to guarantee an adequate standard of living to the older people of tomorrow. the countries in europe with the highest employment rate in the 55 – 64 age group are also those with the highest youth employment. in 2009 the government took an important step by automatically establishing a link, from 2015, between the minimum retirement age and changes in life expectancy ; a regulation now being drafted will implement this provision. actions on the so - called retirement “ windows ” and on regulations for women employed in the public sector move in the same direction. inps has launched initiatives to give better information to workers about their personal pension position. the process of pension system reform could be completed by measures that gradually standardize the retirement age among different groups of workers, speed up adjustments to the transformation coefficients of the contributions - based system, and provide greater retirement flexibility. banks, supervision lending to firms declined by 3. 7 per cent on an annual basis between september and december 2009. in 2010 the pace of the contraction eased and in the three months ending in april came to 1 per cent. the sharpest decline has been in northern italy, where industrial activity is most intensive ; lending to firms in the south has begun to grow again. credit to households has continued to expand, albeit slowly. last year ’ s credit contraction largely reflected the weakness of demand for loans, but there were also supply - side tensions. according to the eurosystem ’ s bank lending survey, these gradually eased from mid - 2009 onwards. we recently conducted the survey at regional level, expanding the sample ; the results indicate improving supply conditions in the early months of this year in the north - west and the south. in italy, as in other countries, the quality of bank loans deteriorates during recession. in 2009 the loan losses of our five largest banking groups absorbed almost 70 per cent of their operating results ; their profits fell by over a fifth. the trend, though moderating in early 2010, has continued and is affecting smaller lenders too, who were less badly hit in the early stages of the crisis. with the onset of the greek crisis, acute liquidity strains in the interbank market have returned after subsiding last year. transactions are mostly very short term. there is a large share of collateralized contracts, a tendency to deal with domestic counterparties and frequent recourse to bilateral trades. banks must be prepared