To be sure, monetary policy can engineer faster growth, higher employment and improved exporter competitiveness in the short term - by tolerating a bit more inflation right now, there is not much doubt that growth and employment would be a little higher in 1997 than otherwise, and that exporters would enjoy the benefits of a lower exchange rate.
(Hence Friedman’s suggestion that the long-run Phillips curve, rather than vertical, might be positively sloped.) Also implicit in Friedman’s focus on nominal stability is the view that central banks should avoid excessively ambitious attempts to manage the real economy, which in practice may exacerbate both nominal and real volatility.