America's "not too hot, not too cold" Goldilocks economy is getting too hot. The result will be 8% interest rates by next summer if the overheated, tech-craze-driven stock market does not crash first.
—John Makin, "US interest rates head for 8%," Sunday Times (London), December 12, 1999

The ''Goldilocks'' scenario, as Mr. Berner of Salomon Brothers calls it, would have the G.N.P. slowing in 1989 to an annual growth rate of 2 to 2.5 percent, then maintaining this level into the 1990's. This rate of expansion is considered by many to be the maximum that the nation can sustain without inflation.

But sustaining a steady growth rate of 2 to 2.5 percent requires just the right level of domestic consumption and overseas demand for American exports. Stephen S. Roach, senior economist at Morgan Stanley & Company, thinks they can be balanced for a while, giving the economy ''solid momentum continuing into next year.''

But the consensus view of most economists is that a Goldilocks economy cannot survive beyond 1990.
—Louis Uchitelle, "Manaing risks," The New York Times, November 13, 1988