Can we run the economy “hot”?
To those who think that President Trump's economic policy is simply an extended program to make the rich richer, there is another, more subtle possibility. The focus on the rich, while understandable, simplifies and misrepresents Trump's larger ambition. This is to create an economy that is operating at the outer edges of its productive capacity — one that is exhausting its supply of workers and surplus of goods and services.
It is in this sense that the economy is “hot”; the comparable term in the 1960s and 1970s was the “high-pressure” economy. The theory is that only such an economy can force businesses to raise wages and hire marginal employees. Trump is shaping economic policy to realize this vision and, in the process, reap the political rewards of doing so.
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