Inflation is certainly low and stable and, measured in unemployment and labour-market slack, the economy has made a lot of progress. The pace of growth is disappointingly slow, mostly because productivity growth has been very slow, which is not really something amenable to monetary policy. It comes from changes in technology, changes in worker skills and a variety of other things, but not monetary policy, in particular.

Monetary policy is not a panacea.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

Inflation is certainly low and stable and, measured in unemployment and labour-market slack, the economy has made a lot of progress. The pace of growth is disappointingly slow, mostly because productivity growth has been very slow, which is not really something amenable to monetary policy. It comes from changes in technology, changes in worker skills and a variety of other things, but not monetary policy, in particular.

I don't think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.