NEW YORK: Washington politicians are worried over signs that America’s great structural boom of the past five years is over: a poorer outlook for profits, increased corporate debts, and a related slowing of business investment in fixed capital, new customers and new employees. If the boom is over, the structural unemployment rate – alias the ‘natural rate,’ or Nairu – will rise to a more normal 4.5 to 5%. Alan Greenspan, chairman of America’s Federal Reserve, can help by avoiding tight money but he cannot undo this structural shift.
NEW YORK: Washington politicians are worried over signs that America’s great structural boom of the past five years is over: a poorer outlook for profits, increased corporate debts, and a related slowing of business investment in fixed capital, new customers and new employees. If the boom is over, the structural unemployment rate – alias the ‘natural rate,’ or Nairu – will rise to a more normal 4.5 to 5%. Alan Greenspan, chairman of America’s Federal Reserve, can help by avoiding tight money but he cannot undo this structural shift.