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

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

James Campbell

2017-06-03 05:35:00 Saturday ET

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

Fundamental value investors, who intend to manage their stock portfolios like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, now find it more difficult to ferret out indiv

+See More

President Trump nominates Jerome Powell to be the new Federal Reserve chairman.

Fiona Sydney

2017-10-03 18:39:00 Tuesday ET

President Trump nominates Jerome Powell to be the new Federal Reserve chairman.

President Trump has nominated Jerome Powell to run the Federal Reserve once Fed Chair Janet Yellen's current term expires in February 2018. Trump's

+See More

We need crowdfunds to support our next responsive web design and iOS and Android app development.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2019-01-13 12:37:00 Sunday ET

We need crowdfunds to support our next responsive web design and iOS and Android app development.

We need crowdfunds to support our next responsive web design and iOS and Android app development. Upon successful campaign completion, we will provide an eb

+See More

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyze long-run crisis data to find the root causes of financial crises for better bank capital regulation and asset market stabilization.

Laura Hermes

2023-06-28 09:29:00 Wednesday ET

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyze long-run crisis data to find the root causes of financial crises for better bank capital regulation and asset market stabilization.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff delve into several centuries of cross-country crisis data to find the key root causes of financial crises for asset marke

+See More

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of AMD (U.S. stock symbol: $AMD).

John Fourier

2025-10-08 11:34:00 Wednesday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of AMD (U.S. stock symbol: $AMD).

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund

+See More

Business leaders inspire teams to reach heights of both innovation and profitability with great corporate purpose.

Apple Boston

2020-08-26 10:33:00 Wednesday ET

Business leaders inspire teams to reach heights of both innovation and profitability with great corporate purpose.

Through purposeful leadership, senior managers inspire teams to reach heights of both innovation and profitability with great brand identity and customer lo

+See More