If you know anything about the Euro crisis you will know that there are "no quick fixes". But it's been going on so long now, you'd think there might have been time for a slow one.
I discussed part of the long-term economic solution to the region's problems on Wednesday night in a piece for the BBC's 10pm television news: in or out of the Euro, to have any chance of growing their way out of trouble, the crisis economies need to rebuild their competitiveness.
"Britain's government is behaving well - it's the blasted economy that's letting everyone down".
That's my translation of the IMF's latest, curious report on the UK, which had some blunt things to say about the state of the economic recovery, and some pointed advice for the Bank of England and the government on how they could make things better.
Talk of a run on Greek deposits, and some banks being cut off from European Central Bank (ECB) support, have added a fresh twist to scary talk about Greece and the euro.
The details are complicated, and not quite as frightening as they first appear. But the big picture is scary indeed, not least for the ECB.
It would be bad news for the UK if the eurozone crisis ends in a messy break-up but it is not the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that the crisis does not end at all.
That was one clear message from Sir Mervyn King's forceful remarks on the euro crisis today.
Just a few months ago, the betting was that the Bank of England's policy makers would vote for at least one more round of quantitative easing this year to support the economy - if not several.
That is still quite possible: today's decision not to inject any more new money into the economy merely puts the policy on hold.
Financial markets were not surprised by the French or Greek election results, so they initially chose to be only mildly alarmed. But the more that investors and policymakers think about them, the more worried they are - for good reason.
Short term, at least, the most important thing that has happened in the past few days is that Greece has moved several steps closer to leaving the euro.
Labour says America has grown faster in the past few years because it has not tried so hard to cut government borrowing. Is that true?
President Obama and Congress, so the argument runs, have not tried to cut America's humungous deficit "too far and too fast". As a result, their economy is now significantly larger than it was before the recession, whereas Britain's is still more than 4% smaller.
The phrase "double-dip recession" conjures up images of roller coasters, but if the UK's recovery were a fairground ride I'd be asking for my money back.
The downward lurch in the economy in 2008-09 was certainly dramatic. But for the past 18 months the UK's national output has been broadly, and disappointingly, flat.
These figures are slightly worse than many expected, but the fact that the UK is now technically back in recession should not detract from the underlying reality, which is very much as predicted.
The UK economy has been bumping along the bottom for more than a year and is still struggling to gain momentum.
Today's trade figures show David Cameron has a battle on his hands boosting Britain's exports. But he's gone to the right part of the world to do it.
In the Budget last month, George Osborne again cited his favourite trade statistic - that the UK exports more to the Republic of Ireland than to all of the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) combined. In fact, as I tweeted at the time, that's not true. It hasn't been true for a while.
As expected, this wasn't a Budget about the big picture.
The state of the economy and public finances hasn't changed much since November, and in theory, all the many changes the chancellor announced on Wednesday leave the balance between spending and taxes at the end of this parliament more or less unchanged.
Why did we have a financial crisis? And why has the recovery been so slow?
Ask any normal person these questions, they would probably blame the banks. But then world-weary "experts" - policy makers and commentators - would usually step forward, to put them straight.
That's one good reason economists would give for removing the 50p tax rate on Britain's highest earners - and taxing its most expensive houses instead.
Stephanie has been a reporter at the New York Times (2001); a speech writer and senior advisor to the US Treasury Secretary (1997-2001); a Financial Times leader-writer and columnist (1993-7); and an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and London Business School.
She became BBC economics editor in April 2008.
She has won numerous awards, including the 2010 Harold Wincott Award for online journalism.
Her father was Michael Flanders, of the 1950s and '60s musical comedy duo, Flanders and Swann.
She lives in West London with her partner and their two children.
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