N as in "Nominal". Nominal GDP targeting, the latest burlesque of monetary fiction. But first things first. There is a land, where people calculate a "potential GDP". How do they do that? By simply extrapolating trends. Potential GDP is "the level of economic activity achievable with a high rate of use of its capital and labor resources". In the past, the differences from observed GDP were not very large, though now we are growing "below trend". But what if that trend has changed? With a flawed measurement of economic activity, leading to an imaginary output gap, what else might our economic elite come up with? Stagnating real GDP and high unemployment are no fun. After exhausting every traditional and non-traditional tool of monetary and fiscal policy, what else could be done to make that GDP grow? Nominal GDP equals real GDP plus inflation. So if real GDP doesn't want to grow... Eureka! you just have to cause more inflation, and nominal GDP will obediently join its potential GDP. Except for one little error of judgment: if elevated inflation led to wealth creation and jobs, Zimbabwe would be the richest country on earth. As real incomes of US employees have stagnated for more than a decade, rising prices would either lead to falling volumes, or force households further into debt. Also, how would this be different from a communist command-style economy?
Lighthouse - Letter to Investors - 2012-12 - Excerpt - Monetary Policy - The N-Word [6]