The U.S. federal government debt has risen from less than 40% of total GDP about a decade ago to 78% as of May 2018.

John Fourier

2018-06-01 07:30:00 Fri ET

The U.S. federal government debt has risen from less than 40% of total GDP about a decade ago to 78% as of May 2018. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that this ratio will surge to 96% in 2028. Although many blame the Trump tax cuts as the key root cause, the increases in health care and retirement benefits suggest a different real reason for U.S. deficit severity.

Harvard professor Martin Feldstein attributes the recent rise of U.S. budget deficit from 4% to 5% of total GDP to increases in Medicare and social security retirement benefits for middle-class older Americans. These increases in core health care and retirement benefits account for about 2.7% of total GDP. The neoclassical Sargent-Wallace thesis suggests that the central bank cannot finance incessant increases in core deficits with government bond issuance regardless of money supply growth. This money supply expansion would lead to inexorable inflationary pressures that defeat the dual mandate of both maximum employment and price stability in the suboptimal fiscal-monetary policy coordination. Inflation serves as a seigniorage tax that would in turn dampen real macroeconomic variates such as household consumption, capital investment, labor supply, and total economic output. In light of this ripple effect on sustainable financial market growth and prosperity, the law of inadvertent consequences counsels caution.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Berkeley professor and economist Barry Eichengreen reconciles the nominal and real interest rates to argue in favor of greater fiscal deficits.

Joseph Corr

2019-05-23 10:33:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley professor and economist Barry Eichengreen reconciles the nominal and real interest rates to argue in favor of greater fiscal deficits.

Berkeley professor and economist Barry Eichengreen reconciles the nominal and real interest rates to argue in favor of greater fiscal deficits. French econo

+See More

Warren Buffett stock market investment principles

Daphne Basel

2020-02-05 10:28:00 Wednesday ET

Warren Buffett stock market investment principles

Our proprietary AYA fintech finbuzz essay shines light on the modern collection of business insights with executive annotations and personal reflections. Th

+See More

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices from 2017 to 2023.

Daisy Harvey

2023-02-03 08:27:00 Friday ET

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices from 2017 to 2023.

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices from 2017 to 2023. Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms the ma

+See More

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction.

Fiona Sydney

2018-04-26 07:37:00 Thursday ET

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction.

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction. The global financial crisis from 2008

+See More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sees great potential for 10-year government bond yields to rise to 5%.

Olivia London

2018-08-05 12:34:00 Sunday ET

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sees great potential for 10-year government bond yields to rise to 5%.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sees great potential for 10-year government bond yields to rise to 5% in contrast to the current 3% 10-year Treasury bond yie

+See More

AYA fintech finbuzz analytic report on the global macro economic outlook Summer-Fall 2019

Andy Yeh Alpha

2019-08-07 08:32:00 Wednesday ET

AYA fintech finbuzz analytic report on the global macro economic outlook Summer-Fall 2019

Our fintech finbuzz analytic report shines fresh light on the current global economic outlook. As of Summer-Fall 2019, the current analytic report focuses o

+See More