Many analysts expressed great enthusiasm about the economy following Friday's strong employment report for December — job creation last year was the highest since 1999.
But former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, now a Harvard professor, isn't satisfied with the economy's performance.
"We're doing much better than we were. We're doing much better than the rest of the world. But we're not doing well enough,"
he told CNBC.
"We haven't had a year of 3 percent growth in a very long time in the United States. And if you look at what the bond market is saying, with interest rates coming down as much as they have, it suggests continuing concern about underlying growth in this economy."
The last year of growth above 3 percent came in 2005 — 3.3 percent. The 10-year Treasury yield has slid to 1.94 percent late Friday from 3.04 percent at the end of 2013.
Medium-term forecasts now call for growth of less than 2 percent, Summers said.
"So we've got to be focused on equitable growth for the years ahead. We've got to be doing more to get the economy growing more rapidly and making sure that everybody shares in that prosperity."
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Robert Wiedemer, co-author of "Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown," agree with Summers.
Greenspan told Bloomberg, "The United States is doing better than anybody else, but we’re still not doing all that well. We still have a very sluggish economy."
Wiedemer's reaction: "I agree that we are probably the best in the world, but it's definitely sluggish," he told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum" show.
"We're really not getting that kind of investment we got earlier, we're getting a massive amount of stock buybacks, a massive amount of investment in pumping up asset bubbles," Wiedemer said.
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