Downcast with failure and tormented by desire I decided to take an action.

Not this time. The record plunge in consumer demand during the Great Recession has been followed by persistently subpar consumption growth.

She looked like the ragged end of nowhere.

PRINCETON At the recent meeting of G 20 finance ministers in Australia, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew noted philosophical differences with some of our friends in Europe, before urging Europeans to do more to boost their anemic growth rate. The terminology is striking, and underscores the difficulty of Europe s search for a way out of its current malaise.

The Taiwanese dollar appreciated, causing Taiwanese exports to slump.

Moreover, the side effects of quantitative easing are significant. Many worry about an upsurge in inflation, though, given the outsize slack in the global economy and the likelihood that it will persist for years to come that is not high on my watch list.

If growth and employment expectations remain dismal, it will be difficult to rekindle demand, particularly private business investment, no matter how low interest rates are, or how many resources banks have for potential lending. ECB President Mario Draghi s message in his speech last month in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as well as at his September press conference was a clear call for more fiscal support to boost effective demand.

In the UK, many business surveys from 2009 2012 told the same story. Poor customer demand was ranked well ahead of credit availability as a constraint on growth.

Since their collapse in 2007, US households have understandably become fixated on repairing the damage. That means paying down debt and rebuilding savings, leaving consumer demand mired in protracted weakness.

Many influential economists are now worried that the US faces anemic growth and secular stagnation, owing to a persistent gap between aggregate demand and full employment. Stagnant middle class incomes imply weak aggregate demand, which in turn means slack labor markets and stagnant wages for most workers.

The contraction of private investment in Europe accounts for only a small part (one third) of the growth gap. Though the financial market tensions that accompanied the euro crisis had a strong negative impact on investment in the eurozone periphery, investment demand has also remained weak in the US, minimizing the overall difference.

The German government, no surprise, does not even acknowledge that there is a problem. With unemployment remaining near record lows, the lack of demand growth is simply dismissed, and the absence of inflation is taken as a sign of success.

On the demand side, the ongoing economic slowdown in China is starting to affect companies orders and revenues, adding to the challenges stemming from the persistently sluggish US economy. Meanwhile, the euro s recent appreciation (particularly against the Japanese yen) limits Europe s ability to compensate for anemic global demand by capturing greater market share.

Even if the US economy continues to stumble in the months ahead, the Fed is unlikely to do anything more before the end of the year. The next policy moves to help the economy must come from the US Congress and the administration after the November election.

Just remember that single acne spot that crippled you for several days.

The significant loss of current and future potential output is all the more remarkable, because it has occurred despite a sustained and unprecedented effort by the Fed to boost demand and hasten the recovery. Fed officials have repeatedly expressed concern that the prolonged weak recovery will inflict future pain in the form of slower long run growth.

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA China s current economic slowdown has no shortage of causes Europe s financial turmoil, sputtering recovery in the United States, and weak domestic investment growth, to name the most commonly cited factors. Since exports and investment account, respectively, for 30 and 40 of China s GDP growth, its economy is particularly vulnerable to weakening external demand and accumulation of non performing loans caused by excessive and wasteful spending on fixed assets.

Still troubled financial systems and huge fiscal deficits are keeping the West s deficit countries (especially the US) from expanding domestic demand. And an unwillingness to trade away export led growth is having the same effect on the East s surplus countries (especially China).

And an unwillingness to trade away export led growth is having the same effect on the East s surplus countries (especially China). As a result, emerging countries, according to the IMF, have been pressed to carry a disproportionate burden of demand rebalancing since the crisis.

Accounting for 69 of the economy, consumer demand holds the key to America s post crisis malaise. In the 17 quarters since recovery began, annualized growth in real personal consumption expenditures has averaged just 2.2 , compared to a pre crisis trend of 3.6 from 1996 to 2007.

But now growth rates for Chinese exports and related indices in manufacturing have fallen, largely owing to weak external demand, especially in Europe. And the Chinese authorities are now scaling back the other major driver of their country s growth, public sector investment, as low return projects seem to generate aggregate demand but prove unsustainable fairly quickly.

I detest cheap sentiment.

What the world needs now are leaders who are willing to bridge the gap between daunting short term demands and desirable long term outcomes. Instead of remaining preoccupied with the present, world leaders should view 2015 as an opportunity to ensure that today s disruptive crises provide the foundation for tomorrow s sustainable prosperity.

The source states that Mr. Choi is not being given proper and adequate medical and dietary treatment in the prison and that his wife, when she visited him in August 2004, found him even thinner and more frail, in declining health and with low morale.

Indeed, there are no practical reasons for Russia s current system of governance to fall into crisis (although such reasons may emerge in the event of an economic downturn). But there is another reason, no less important, that concerns morals and ideology.

SEOUL The commodity super cycle in which commodity prices reach ever higher highs, and fall only to higher lows is not over. Despite the euphoria around shale gas indeed, despite weak global growth commodity prices have risen by as much as 150 in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Summers emphasizes the inadequacy of aggregate demand, exacerbated by the inability of central banks to reduce nominal interest rates below zero. The reasons for weak aggregate demand include aging populations that consume less and the growing concentration of wealth among the very rich, whose marginal propensity to consume is small.

Owing to the former, the risks to Asia from a European banking crisis cannot be taken lightly. Lacking well developed capital markets as an alternative source of credit, bank funding channels are especially vital in Asia.

For Japan, the TPP is vital to achieve economic liberalization the third arrow of Abenomics, the government s program to revitalize the country s ailing economy. The legislation to enact the TPP will simply push aside the lobbies and vested interests that have been so effective in slowing down or diverting piecemeal reforms.

Neither weak foreign demand nor a lack of financing, therefore, can be the reason for Greece s poor export performance. Low competitiveness, too, is not an explanation, as real (inflation adjusted) wage costs have declined by more in Greece in recent years than in any other eurozone country, with the exception of Ireland.

When the economy is booming, they claim, expenditure must be cut (or, if all else fails, taxes raised) in order to reduce demand. When the economy is tanking, expenditure also has to be cut in order to restore confidence and revive investment.

The headline consumer price index (CPI) is near zero, and core or underlying inflation the Fed s favorite indicator remains significantly below the seemingly sacrosanct 2 target. With a long anemic recovery looking shaky again, the doves contend that there is no reason to rush ahead with interest rate hikes.

Of course, not all emerging markets, according to this logic, are equally exposed. Among the most vulnerable countries are Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Indonesia the so called Fragile Five all of which are characterized by twin fiscal and current account deficits, high inflation, in addition to faltering GDP growth.

Russia s troubles, too, do not reflect the impact of Fed policies. Its economy is suffering as a result of the fall in oil prices and international sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine a war that will now force Ukraine to restructure its foreign debt, which the war, severe recession, and currency depreciation have rendered unsustainable.

PARIS In most European countries, GDP per capita is currently lower than it was six years ago. In some cases, like Greece, Italy, and Ireland, it is more than 10 lower.

The new government needs to convince the middle class to accept a cutback in energy subsidies, which now consume 30 of public expenditures, and ensure better regulation of competition and democratization of credit. It needs to protect the poor and provide them with security and broader access to state services, and to convince them that reforms will work to their advantage.

Social malaise is deepening as expectations and actual prospects for economic improvement are likely to remain poor for the foreseeable future. Faith in the European project is declining, and, given the eurozone s lack of cohesion, stagnation and recession may lead to popular rejection of the EU, accompanied by serious challenges to democracy, including the rise of neo fascist parties.

In most advanced economies, for example, there is still a very large output gap, with output and demand well below potential thus, firms have limited pricing power. There is considerable slack in labor markets as well Too many unemployed workers are chasing too few available jobs, while trade and globalization, together with labor saving technological innovations, are increasingly squeezing workers jobs and incomes, placing a further drag on demand.

Housing and housing finance At the root of the global financial crisis, the troubled US housing market continues to act as a millstone around the economy s neck. The longer the problems persist, the greater the pressure on consumer and business sentiment, and the harder it is for the unemployed to find and relocate to new job opportunities.

You see it on their faces and their bodies, and they sit in their chair and they make themselves tiny, and they go like this when they raise their hand.

For too long, developed countries have clung to their outsize influence in the international financial institutions, even as their fiscal fitness has dwindled. By ignoring the advice that they so vehemently dispensed to the developing world, they brought the world economy to its knees.

America provided China with both stability and growth anchors. China enabled the US to sidestep the mounting perils of subpar saving, reckless fiscal policy, and weak household income growth.

Meanwhile, Japan s economy seems to be recovering from a generation of malaise, with this year s annualized growth rate exceeding 3 . Moreover, following the triple shock of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe in 2011, Japan has managed (at considerable cost) to replace the 25 of its energy supply that the disabled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant provided.

Moreover, there is still slack in real estate markets where booms went bust (the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, and Dubai). And bubbles in other markets (for example, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand) pose a new risk, as their collapse would drag down home prices.

The right of separation on the ground of impotence shall under no circumstances be forfeited.