The persistent above-trend growth and progressive increase in utilization rates suggested to me a danger of overheating and higher inflation. This concern encouraged a series of tightening moves in an attempt to slow economic growth at least toward the new higher trend and thereby prevent still higher utilization rates.
In my view, a period of below-trend growth was likely to be required to unwind what I viewed as an unsustainably high rate of resource utilization. As a result of a coincidence of forces, the economy slowed much more steeply than the Fed expected or intended.