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

Goldman Sachs follows the timeless business principles and best practices in financial market design and investment management.

Chanel Holden

2020-02-26 09:30:00 Wednesday ET

Goldman Sachs follows the timeless business principles and best practices in financial market design and investment management.

Goldman Sachs follows the timeless business principles and best practices in financial market design and investment management. William Cohan (2011) M

+See More

Tech stock prices tumble due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence.

Dan Rochefort

2018-03-29 14:28:00 Thursday ET

Tech stock prices tumble due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence.

Share prices tumble for technology stocks due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook user data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilo

+See More

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in order to boost the oil price in recent years.

Monica McNeil

2018-05-11 09:37:00 Friday ET

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in order to boost the oil price in recent years.

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in recent years while the resultant oil price has surged from $30 to $78 per barrel from 2015 to 2

+See More

Federal Reserve proposes to revamp post-crisis rules for U.S. banks.

Joseph Corr

2019-04-19 12:35:00 Friday ET

Federal Reserve proposes to revamp post-crisis rules for U.S. banks.

Federal Reserve proposes to revamp post-crisis rules for U.S. banks. The current proposals would prescribe materially less strict requirements for community

+See More

Uniform field theory of corporate finance

Peter Prince

2022-11-25 09:29:00 Friday ET

Uniform field theory of corporate finance

Uniform field theory of corporate finance While the agency and precautionary-motive stories are complementary, these stories can be nested as special cas

+See More

President Trump targets Amazon in his call for U.S. Postal Service to charge higher delivery prices on the ecommerce giant.

Laura Hermes

2018-01-03 08:38:00 Wednesday ET

President Trump targets Amazon in his call for U.S. Postal Service to charge higher delivery prices on the ecommerce giant.

President Trump targets Amazon in his call for U.S. Postal Service to charge high delivery prices on the ecommerce giant. Trump picks another fight with an

+See More