Brazil's problems still look manageable, though the central bank would be wise to let the currency slip: intervening against the market is a sure way to lose money.
What places like Plymouth teach us is that everything that makes an economy great can slip away in a few decades, and that government policies often play a central role in economic decline.
The OECD has been largely wrong in the past few years, but in this they agree with many private forecasters - and the likes of the European Central Bank (ECB), which has also suggested that the eurozone is likely to slip into recession.