Former US Treasury secretary, Larry Sanders, has called it "Secular Stagnation", which has less to do with falling attendance at church and more to do with economies showing little growth.

The world's most powerful central banker, Janet Yellen, has warned interest rates will be "lower for longer".

Now Christine Lagarde's International Monetary Fund has issued a report titled "Too slow for too long". For a turgid-sounding economic institution, the boffins at the IMF have a way with words.

Its November 2008 missive in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers titled "Rapidly weakening prospects call for new policy stimulus" sent shivers around the world.

Its 2014 update was titled "Legacies, clouds, uncertainties".

The global financial storm appears to have passed. But it has left a trail of destruction and global growth is, as the IMF warns, too slow.

Whereas China and other emerging economies were still going gangbusters as the GFC brought the developed world to its knees, there has since now been a convergence of sorts.

China's once rapid double-digit growth is expected to settle at just 6.5 per cent this year.

Rounding out the BRIC block, Brazil and Russia are expected to remain in recession this year and India to grow at more like 7.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, growth remains tepid in the developed world.

Britain's economy is expected to grow just 1.9 per cent this year with fears that the so-called "Brexit" – an exit from the European Union – "could do severe regional and global damage by disrupting established trading relationships".

The world's largest economy, the US, is a quiet, solid achiever, expected to grow 2.4 per cent this year and 2.5 per cent the next. It has emerged from its great recession to boast a jobless rate of 5 per cent – although it's not clear all the discouraged jobseekers have re-entered the fray yet .

At home, the Australian economy is putting the "meh" into econo-meh.

Our jobless rate, at 5.7 per cent, has found a foothold below 6 per cent, but is still well above full employment.

Our economic growth rate, at 3 per cent last year, is better than expected, but still below trend of 3.25 per cent.

With the world having just delivered us our biggest pay cut in history through rapidly declining commodity prices, wages growth is essentially non-existent after inflation.

There are some areas of risk, according to the Reserve Bank's latest twice-yearly Financial Stability Review, including concerns about oversupply of apartments in Melbourne and Brisbane.

But generally, despite a cooler economy, Australian households are holding water.

Mortgage-holders are ploughing savings from record low interest rates into their offset accounts. The average borrower now has two-and-a-half years of repayments sitting in their offset, ready for a rainy day.

And interest rates look set to remain low. An improving jobs market gives the Reserve Bank confidence that it need not cut rates even further. But an absence of inflation pressure gives it room to move, if needed.

The new global "meh" means investors will have to work extra hard to match the returns of decades past. Lower interest rates and money printing will work quietly to shift incentives towards borrowing and investment. But there is precious little "animal spirit" at present to spark a new wave of growth.

For Australian households, it's time to kiss goodbye to the rapid rises in living standards we have seen in recent decades. Wages growth looks set to remain tepid, and there will be little in the way of government largesse.

The IMF is urging countries with fiscal space to spend now to stimulate growth. But there is little left in the fiscal kitty for most.

Winter has come to the world economy. And it looks set to be a long one.

Caitlin Fitzsimmons is on leave.