Instead in Italy we say that the government is poor but its citizens are rich [0]. A country of shopkeeper and small business owners never too keen to pay duties to government and always looking for some scheme to game welfare/subsidies.
Italian median / mean wealth by person: 107,315 / 221,370 euro
Germany median / mean wealth by person: 66,735 / 256,179 euro
Italy by capita has 48k euro of public debt vs 30k by capita of Germany
It's a sad thing, really. Italy could theoretically be doing better than Switzerland but in practice they are doing far worse due to the never ending corruption, tax evasion and organized crime all of which drag the country down tremendously. But it will take many generations to repair that.
The main problem for Italy is its public debt [1][2]. The debt is so big that Italy can barely pay interests to stay within the boundaries defined by EU. This means there is no remaining money to fund growth.
That's fair, but I see that debt as a consequence, not as a direct cause. If not for a stupendously inefficient government, tax evasion and organized crime that debt would be far lower than it is and much easier to service. Though probably there are now positive feedback loops between these that essentially make it impossible fix the direct causes without being able to fix the debt first.
Italian median / mean wealth by person: 107,315 / 221,370 euro
Germany median / mean wealth by person: 66,735 / 256,179 euro
Italy by capita has 48k euro of public debt vs 30k by capita of Germany
[]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
[0]: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/indagine-famiglie/...