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

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Charlene Vos

2019-10-21 10:35:00 Monday ET

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into the market power and corporate behavior of central tech titans such as Apple

+See More

Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and UBS face an antitrust lawsuit.

Daphne Basel

2018-09-30 14:34:00 Sunday ET

Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and UBS face an antitrust lawsuit.

Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and UBS face an antitrust lawsuit. In this lawsuit, a U.S. judge alleges the illegal cons

+See More

New Keynesian monetary policy framework

Monica McNeil

2023-09-21 09:26:00 Thursday ET

New Keynesian monetary policy framework

Jordi Gali delves into the science of the New Keynesian monetary policy framework with economic output and inflation stabilization. Jordi Gali (2015)

+See More

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China.

Joseph Corr

2020-01-01 13:39:00 Wednesday ET

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China.

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China. This approval averts the introduction of new tariffs on Chinese imports. In return, China s

+See More

Scientific research trumps basic intuition and common sense.

Amy Hamilton

2019-08-30 11:35:00 Friday ET

Scientific research trumps basic intuition and common sense.

The conventional wisdom suggests that chameleons change their skin coloration to camouflage their presence for survival through Darwinian biological evoluti

+See More

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology.

John Fourier

2018-05-01 11:38:00 Tuesday ET

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology.

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology, whereas, most market observers and economic media commentators hope the Trump team to

+See More