Like a manic depressive, the eurozone economy is either up or down, exuberant or glum, rarely in a state of normality. If you look back at the annual growth rates over the past 10 years of the 12 countries currently constituting the eurozone, you see an extraordinary degree of volatility. The eurozone economy managed to come close to its estimated cyclically adjusted annual growth rate of about 2 per cent in only two years out of 10. In most years growth was either above 2.5 per cent or below 1.5 per cent, and often quite a bit higher or lower.

Is there an end to the boom-bust ride in sight? Probably not. What is far more difficult to discern, however, is whether we are heading up or down, or both.