ABSTRACT
The US economy’s ability to generate new employment made Bill Clinton “the envy” of his Group of Seven peers, NBC’s Irving R. Levine reported from the Naples economic summit. If growth gets too rapid and unemployment gets too low, the economy will “overheat,” with prices and wages rising, and a generalized inflation is set into motion. In a May 22, 1994, New York Times story, Thomas L. Friedman obscured the conflict by claiming that “it is not only the J. P. Morgans of Wall Street who worry about inflation. Thomas Friedman argued that attempts to push the economy below the magic level would only resuit in higher inflation, not more employment. Right-wing policy prescriptions include cutting unemployment benefits and repealing the minimum wage; liberal prescriptions include education, job training, and employer subsidies; and more radical ones include price controls and a more centralized wage bargaining system.
