But, after eight years of economic expansion, the economy appears stretched in a number of dimensions, implying considerable upside and downside risks to the economic outlook. The robust increase of production has been using up our nation’s spare labor resources, suggesting that recent strong growth in spending cannot continue without a pick-up in inflation unless labor productivity growth increases significantly further.
Equity prices are high enough to raise questions about whether shares are overvalued. The debt of the household and business sectors has mounted, as has the external debt of the country as a whole, reflecting the deepening current account deficit. We remain vulnerable to rapidly changing conditions overseas, which, as we saw last summer, can be transmitted to U.S. markets quickly and traumatically.