All we see, as she looks out of the window, are her eyes, nicely framed in mascara.

We know that you do not have a magic wand ...

Governments cannot just conjure that up by waving a magic wand.

We concede that there is no magic wand to overcome our country s problems.

Even now, the celebrated Betty Bigombe has not used a magic wand to bring Kony to the negotiating table.

America s fiscal and external deficits will not disappear just because the chief magician at the Federal Reserve waves his wand and says abracadabra.

The downturn was not caused by a liquidity squeeze, so the Fed cannot wave its wand and return asset prices to their pre recession configuration.

Since the international rating agencies gave their assessments (ratings) for each national solvency (the ability to pay public debt) it seemed they held the wand over the Eurozone s future.

When I was in Huntington, trying to get a few things to work when they weren't, I thought If I had a magic wand, what would I do? And I thought, You know what?

It was really humbling to see for the first time, to really understand that even if I could have taken a magic wand and fixed everything, I probably would have gotten a lot wrong.

The long term success of the economy, and its capacity to build wealth and jobs, depends on productivity gains, which in turn depend on technical and organizational innovation. Governments cannot just conjure that up by waving a magic wand.

Establishing a banking union by 2013 will not give Europe a magic wand with which to wave away the economic crisis overnight but it is a major and crucial step to restoring the confidence of Europe s citizens, international partners, and investors.