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

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market issues and economic trends for better and wiser investment decisions.

Daphne Basel

2019-07-31 11:34:00 Wednesday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market issues and economic trends for better and wiser investment decisions.

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube July 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of July 2019: (1) All 18 systemical

+See More

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

Daphne Basel

2019-10-31 13:38:00 Thursday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

  AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube October 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of October 2019: (1)

+See More

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence.

Olivia London

2019-09-23 12:25:00 Monday ET

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence.

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence. These former Federal Reserve chiefs unit

+See More

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America.

Jacob Miramar

2019-06-27 10:39:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America.

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America. Their latest estimates show that the top 0.1

+See More

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma.

Daisy Harvey

2019-06-07 04:02:05 Friday ET

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma.

The world seeks to reduce medicine prices and other health care costs to better regulate big pharma. Nowadays the Trump administration requires pharmaceutic

+See More

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld suggest that relatively successful ethnic groups exhibit common cultural traits in America.

Laura Hermes

2023-05-21 12:26:00 Sunday ET

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld suggest that relatively successful ethnic groups exhibit common cultural traits in America.

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld suggest that relatively successful ethnic groups exhibit common cultural traits in America. Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld (2015)

+See More