This IS the recovery. Over the past thirty years we’ve seen remarkable growth for an already-mature economy, some of that growth built on sustainable gains in productivity and other parts of that growth built on economic imperialism. As that latter foundation crumbles over the coming decades, our economy will face strong headwinds. GDP growth will be severely muted for a while.

Plan for 1% or 2% annual growth and we probably won’t be disappointed. Insist on planning for 4% annual growth and we risk running the economy over a cliff.