The Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly revised down its estimates of America's output potential since 2007 (see right-hand chart).
Which is what leads to our interesting problem: the margin for error, the gap between the entire system working at full output and potential peak demand is going to be only 4% of that peak demand.
The company didn't give the estimated reserves or the potential output from the new discoveries.
As long as output remains below potential, inflation should continue to fall from its already low level.
The OBR estimates the economy's spare capacity is just 2.5% of potential output.
"We will obviously have to do proper analyses of the environmental aspects, the potential output, and of course all the engineering aspects, " he added.
In any case, so long as growth is below long-term trend, the gap between actual and potential output will continue to grow, easing inflationary pressure.
Or you could go with a simpler but more pessimistic explanation: both the level and growth rate of American potential output is much lower than we think.
As the unemployment rate has declined, it has actually worried economists that are seeing signs of a permanent reduction in the potential output of the U.S. economy.
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And in the long run later retirement and other reforms will expand the labour force and thus potential output, whereas higher taxes dull incentives to work and invest.
Yet Bernanke seems to possess some Keynesian baggage, using such nomenclature as "aggregate demand, " "core inflation, " "potential output" and "output gap, " as though the economy were made up of interchangeable parts.
An analysis by Martin Barnes, of the Bank Credit Analyst, finds that if America's growth performance is instead measured by the gap between actual and potential output, it looks much less stellar.
The OBR is now a bit gloomier about the longer-term capacity of the economy, meaning they think our potential output will be about 1.3% of GDP smaller than previously thought by 2017.
Higher taxes on capital gains and dividends, abstracting from issues of equity and fairness, reduce real economic growth, cause weaker consumption and decreases in business capital spending, reduce employment, and labor force growth, and help bring about less potential output.
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If he's wrong - if there is, in fact, a faster growth path available, which would not undermine market confidence, then the government's strategy could be making the supply side problem a self-fulfilling prophesy, by condemning us to unnecessarily slow growth which could have permanent effects on Britain's potential output.
This is equivalent to a total drop in output, relative to potential, of 7%.
When output is below its potential, inflation tends to fall even if growth is brisk.
With unemployment high, output far below its potential, private spending still weak and interest rates close to zero, Mr Krugman and his allies argue that fiscal stimulus remains an essential prop to the economy and that deficit-cutting now will spell stagnation and deflation.
This could mean the potential rate of output growth in the U.S. has taken a bit hit since the financial crisis.
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As I have explained here many times, it is impossible for the US to default on the debt (because it is denominated in dollars), deficits create private sector wealth (while surpluses reduce it), and we NEED the government to supplement aggregate demand so that we can generate output and employment to our potential.
Earlier this year, staff at the Federal Reserve also marked down their estimate of the country's potential GDP and the output gap in response to the surprisingly steep drop in unemployment.
It has made a medium-term pledge to restrict spending to a level that would give a budget surplus if output were growing at its full potential (currently reckoned to be 5%).
With unemployment nearing 9%, economic output is further below the economy's potential than at any time since 1982.
This rests on the notion that there is a fixed ceiling for output, rising over time, so any shortfall against potential is a permanent loss.
However, the uncertainty about the valuation of asset prices is arguably no greater than the uncertainty about potential growth rates and hence the size of the output gap, which is at the heart of most central banks' inflation forecasts.
If so, output will in total have fallen by almost one-third relative to productive potential (as measured by the economy's trend growth rate of 7%).
Any more than you would want the UK's productivity - output per head - to keep falling, or our economy to continue operating so far below potential.
But according to his calculations, during storms such as Monday's, the wave power potential down the 124 miles (200km) length of the Western Isles could match the output of 120 Torness-sized nuclear power stations.
In a statement issued without the usual summit to precede it, the G7 called on oil-producing countries to increase output in order to dampen oil prices, which have risen since June because of concern about a potential Israeli military strike on Iran.
The computer robot would then suggest the most logical output based on mathematical computation that yielded the best results within a given time period, taking into account potential statistical probabilities for failures and unpredicted consequences.
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