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 reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations.

Monica McNeil

2019-08-12 07:30:00 Monday ET

Facebook reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations.

Facebook reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations. The Federal Trade Commission (F

+See More

Federal Reserve remains patient on future interest rate adjustments due to trade and fiscal budget negotiations.

Becky Berkman

2019-02-04 07:42:00 Monday ET

Federal Reserve remains patient on future interest rate adjustments due to trade and fiscal budget negotiations.

Federal Reserve remains patient on future interest rate adjustments due to global headwinds and impasses over American trade and fiscal budget negotiations.

+See More

Ray Fair applies his macroeconometric model to study the central features of the U.S. macroeconomy such as price stability and full employment in the dual mandate.

Charlene Vos

2023-07-14 10:32:00 Friday ET

Ray Fair applies his macroeconometric model to study the central features of the U.S. macroeconomy such as price stability and full employment in the dual mandate.

Ray Fair applies his macroeconometric model to study the central features of the U.S. macroeconomy such as price stability and full employment in the dual m

+See More

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential user growth.

Fiona Sydney

2020-05-28 15:37:00 Thursday ET

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential user growth.

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential business growth. Laure Reillier and Benoit

+See More

What are the mainstream legal origins of President Trump's new tariff policies?

Amy Hamilton

2025-06-13 08:23:00 Friday ET

What are the mainstream legal origins of President Trump's new tariff policies?

What are the mainstream legal origins of President Trump’s new tariff policies? We delve into the mainstream legal origins of President Trump&rsquo

+See More

The current Trump stock market rally has been impressive from November 2016 to October 2017.

John Fourier

2017-10-09 09:34:00 Monday ET

The current Trump stock market rally has been impressive from November 2016 to October 2017.

The current Trump stock market rally has been impressive from November 2016 to October 2017. S&P 500 has risen by 21.1% since the 2016 presidential elec

+See More