Fig.: a catch-22 is any absurd arrangement that puts a person in a double bind; a no-win dilemma. Today it's often misused to mean any difficult problem

The no-smoking law puts the bar owners in a catch-22 situation: if they don't send out the smoking customers, they will be fined and forced to close; if, on the other hand, send the customers out to smoke, they will lose the customers

La legge antifumo mette i proprietari di bar in una situazione senza via d'uscita: se non mandano fuori i clienti che fumano, vengono multati e costretti a chiudere; se, d'altro canto, mandano fuori i clienti fumatori, perdono il cliente

In the job market, everyone is looking to hire people with experience, but no one is willing to hire you so you can gain experience: it's a catch-22 situation

Nel mondo del lavoro tutti cercano persone con esperienza da assumere, ma nessuno ti assume per poter fare esperienza: è il gatto che si morde la coda

Due to little traffic, the private toll roadway is losing money. They have raised the toll in an attempt to reduce the loss, however doing so has resulted in fewer drivers using it: it's the typical catch-22 situation

L'autostrada privata a pagamento è in perdita perché non c'è abbastanza traffico. Per limitare le perdite hanno aumentato il pedaggio, ma così dimininuiscono sempre più gli automobilisti che la usano: è il classico esempio del gatto che si morde la coda

It refers to "Catch-22", a war novel from the 1960s by American author Joseph Heller. A provision in army regulations, stipulates that a soldier's request to be relieved from active duty can be accepted only if he is mentally unfit to fight; however, any soldier who has the sense to ask to be spared the horrors of war is obviously mentally fit and therefore must stay to fight