Economies around the world are still having trouble sustaining strong growth in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The problems are particularly noteworthy in Europe, the United States and China, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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As for Europe, the eurozone reported Thursday that its economy grew only at a 0.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter.

"Unless growth in the eurozone really picks up, then the prospect of a lost decade is very real," Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told The New York Times.

"It matters because it permanently shifts the political power center of the euro toward the stronger countries of Northern Europe, and in the southern countries, it means a decline of living standards that may well last beyond a decade."

As for the U.S. economy, GDP expanded only 0.1 percent in the first quarter.

"My guess is that we will see some pickup as we get into the second half of the year, but the longer we go without getting the 3 percent growth that many people had in their forecasts, the more concerned you have to be," Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, told The Journal.

In China, economic growth shrank to 7.4 percent in the first quarter from 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter. David Stockman, White House budget director under President Reagan, sees the Chinese economy imploding.

"China is a nation that has gone mad building, speculating and borrowing on the back of a monumental (and dangerously unstable) credit bubble," he wrote on his blog.

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