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

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Amy Hamilton

2018-03-17 09:35:00 Saturday ET

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. In a Facebook pos

+See More

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Jacob Miramar

2018-01-12 07:37:00 Friday ET

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. These key tech titans often receive plaudits for mak

+See More

Smart firms and customers connect the continuous flow of lean production to the lean consumption of cost-effective minimum viable products.

Olivia London

2020-07-26 15:29:00 Sunday ET

Smart firms and customers connect the continuous flow of lean production to the lean consumption of cost-effective minimum viable products.

Firms and customers create value and wealth together by joining the continual flow of small batches of lean production to the lean consumption of cost-effec

+See More

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators hold constructive phone talks after Presidents Trump and Xi exchange reconciliatory gestures at the G20 summit.

Joseph Corr

2019-08-04 08:26:00 Sunday ET

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators hold constructive phone talks after Presidents Trump and Xi exchange reconciliatory gestures at the G20 summit.

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators hold constructive phone talks after Presidents Trump and Xi exchange reconciliatory gestures at the G20 summit in Japan.

+See More

Dodd-Frank rollback raises the asset threshold for systemic financial institutions from $50 billion to $250 billion.

Peter Prince

2018-05-21 07:39:00 Monday ET

Dodd-Frank rollback raises the asset threshold for systemic financial institutions from $50 billion to $250 billion.

Dodd-Frank rollback raises the asset threshold for systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) from $50 billion to $250 billion. This legislative

+See More

Business titans often step away from their urgent work, slow down, and invest in self-enrichment.

Laura Hermes

2017-12-23 10:40:00 Saturday ET

Business titans often step away from their urgent work, slow down, and invest in self-enrichment.

Despite having way more responsibility than anyone else, top business titans such as Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Oprah Winfrey often step away from

+See More