It's hard to ignore the starkness of the retail numbers. 

6700 are risk of closure, 17,000 out of the 27000 could shut for good, only 10,000 are in a stable financial position, 24 percent are expected to cease trading, and 37 percent hang in the balance.

That’s ugly and may well go some way to giving a clearer insight into how artificially the economy is currently being propped up by borrowed government money.

But what it might also show, and I hope I am right, is that they are being way too pessimistic. Increasingly from all parts of the world, not just here, the forecasts of doom are being proven wrong, and in many cases badly and wildly so.

Not unlike all the deaths they said would happen with the virus, the calls, forecasts, and predictions of dire recessions come depressions don't appear real.

This is not to say it isn't bad, because it is. It’s a mess. And part of it is being exacerbated as we have already seen this week by the Cabinet leak over days without community spread, and why we aren't in level one yet. We are not helping ourselves the way we might. Things don’t need to be as bad as they could be, and approach is everything. As I've said, we need to be operating on gut, instinct, and courage. Not policy wonks in the public service looking to cross the last "t".

Spending was down 80 percent in lockdown, 37 percent in level three, and now only 12 percent in level two. 12 percent is bad, but it's not the end of the world. With level one next week with a tail wind and the right intent, there is no reason to think it can't be back to largely normal.

So why then are so many businesses going out of business? Could it be there were barely hanging on anyway? Could it be some areas of business has changed? The money has gone elsewhere? It's probably both those things.

But it's also the fact, not enough people back themselves. It might well be, like so many of the other numbers that have been wrong, the numbers of closures is wrong as well.

The simple truth is a recession shakes out the weak, always has. And it's not a bad thing. And maybe new businesses, when they start, start with better backing, better planning, and better foundations. Let's hope so.

But if there is a strong theme emerging, it's that a lot of what we thought would happen hasn’t. And it hasn’t because when we thought it might, we didn’t know, so we went negative to cover our bets and backs.

Level one changes all that. Most of it now sits with us. Do we want to succeed? Or do we want to pack up before we start?

The choice is easy and it's ours.