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

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Peter Prince

2018-09-13 19:38:00 Thursday ET

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying on behalf of Microsoft before U.S. Congress. Both drop out of Harvard to

+See More

The global asset management industry is central to modern capitalism.

Amy Hamilton

2022-02-22 09:30:00 Tuesday ET

The global asset management industry is central to modern capitalism.

The global asset management industry is central to modern capitalism. Mutual funds, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowment trusts, and asset ma

+See More

President Trump signs an executive order to freeze federal employee pay in early-2019.

Rose Prince

2019-01-06 08:39:00 Sunday ET

President Trump signs an executive order to freeze federal employee pay in early-2019.

President Trump signs an executive order to freeze federal employee pay in early-2019. Federal employees face furlough or work without pay due to the govern

+See More

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market.

Daisy Harvey

2018-11-17 09:33:00 Saturday ET

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market.

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as its competitors Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market. The real es

+See More

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe outlines the main economic priorities for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

Laura Hermes

2019-07-13 07:17:00 Saturday ET

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe outlines the main economic priorities for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe outlines the main economic priorities for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. First, Asian countries need to forge the key Re

+See More

The new world order of trade helps accomplish non-economic policy goals such as national security and technological dominance.

Amy Hamilton

2024-01-31 14:33:00 Wednesday ET

The new world order of trade helps accomplish non-economic policy goals such as national security and technological dominance.

The new world order of trade helps accomplish non-economic policy goals such as national security and technological dominance. To the extent that freer

+See More