He's using this horrible thing called the growth gap. It is this made up metric that assumes economic models are correct ahead of actual reality. It essentially

He's using this horrible thing called the growth gap. It is this made up metric that assumes economic models are correct ahead of actual reality. It essentially measures actual growth against opinion. Its the old quip "It may work in practice, but it will never work in theory." Potential GDP is defined as what the economy is capable of growing at. How is that determined? By a model. And if we are growing faster than the model says, it is assumed to be growth borrowed from the future. And growth below expectation can then be seen as storing up for the future. Under this incredible strange up-is-down interpretation, you'll see how far below expectation the Obama administration was. Some how not meeting expectations can now be a good thing. 1- So even if this were true, the above and below periods should balance to zero over a long enough time. If they don't, then there is a problem with your model not predicting growth properly. In the second chart, growth is often below expectation since the 1960s (as far back as the chart says) and almost entirely below since the 1980s. Something is clearly wrong with the potential growth model. 2- if it were true, why is this not a rebounding from the previous below potential of the last couple decades? In that case we aren't above potential just catching up to it. 3- using the output gap as a strong/weak signal doesn't even pass the smell test: it would show the economy of the 1980s as being inferior to the 1970s. In fact, it would show no economy being as magical time known as the 1970s! Curious who this guy is, it is a terrible article, i found his academic page: "Evan Horowitz is an assistant professor of English at the University of North Texas who specializes in Victorian literature and culture."