MARC LAVENTURIER:
Needless to say, if the US inflation rate averaged 3% over the last century, including periods of acute deflation (the 1930s) and acute inflation (the 1970s), it does not signify a monetary policy that successfully achieved price stability. (Interestingly, a similar story holds for the pre-1914 gold standard period, which averaged substantial inflations alternating with substantial deflations.) If that is what price level targeting would deliver, I'd say "no thanks." -- JF

JZ:
On the unequal distribution of the fruits of the expansion, you might look at some of my other writings (at https://scholar.harvard.edu/frankel/inequality-0):
* “Inequality in America: Achieving An Economy That Works for All,” Economic Policy Forum, Northeastern University, Sept. 28, 2017.
* "Brexit, Trump and Globalization's Have-nots," Project Syndicate, July 2016.
* "Reckoning with Inequality in the US," Project Syndicate, March 2016.
JF

SE: Rising inequality in the US and some other countries is indeed a big problem. I have written extensively on the causes and solutions, in Project Syndicate and elsewhere. But my judgment is that the Trump-induced increase in tariffs on US exports and imports will now hurt the typical American worker. If that judgment proves right, perhaps you will be more receptive to the claim by us economists that the US-led decline in global tariffs from 1950 until recently was economically beneficial. -- JF

NC -- Please see my response to RP. The general principle of mutually beneficial gains from trade does not rule out capital mobility, any more than it rules out trade deficits. -- JF

RP -- My column argued that one did not need to get into the specifics of Ricardo's comparative advantage (1817) to appreciate the more fundamental principle of "mutual gains from trade." The latter is just the presumption that a freely-agreed economic transaction normally benefits the domestic resident as well as the foreigner, if both are mentally competent adults, because they judge the exchange to be in their interest. The argument does NOT depend on the assumption of balanced trade. -- JF