Spare a thought today for Scotland's thousands of small businesses.
This plucky flotilla of entrepreneurs have been hurled around on stormy economic seas for four years, while larger companies have been better able to cut through the turbulence.
Regrettably, there's no sign of an improvement in the economic forecast yet. Take the retail sector. Fewer people are spending their cash – the number of shoppers in Scotland was down by 8.2% in the spring compared to the same period last year, which is more than three times the reduction in the UK as a whole – and the number of vacant shops is rising.
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