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

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.

Dan Rochefort

2023-05-27 11:30:00 Saturday ET

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.   What are the main root cau

+See More

Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills for smarter, better, and more effective leaders, teams, and organizations in modern life, business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Fiona Sydney

2025-07-05 11:23:00 Saturday ET

Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills for smarter, better, and more effective leaders, teams, and organizations in modern life, business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Former New York Times science author and Harvard psychologist Daniel Goleman explains why working with emotional intelligence helps hone our social skills f

+See More

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his co-authors show the innovative corporate culture and mission of the Internet search tech titan.

Daisy Harvey

2020-03-12 09:32:00 Thursday ET

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his co-authors show the innovative corporate culture and mission of the Internet search tech titan.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his co-authors show the innovative corporate culture and mission of the Internet search tech titan. Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Ro

+See More

In the modern monetary system, each CBDC helps anchor public trust in money in support of economic welfare, especially in a new cashless society.

Joseph Corr

2024-07-31 09:28:00 Wednesday ET

In the modern monetary system, each CBDC helps anchor public trust in money in support of economic welfare, especially in a new cashless society.

In the modern monetary system, each new CBDC helps anchor public trust in money in support of economic welfare, especially in a cashless society. In our

+See More

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz maintains that globalization only works for a few elite groups.

Becky Berkman

2019-08-09 18:35:00 Friday ET

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz maintains that globalization only works for a few elite groups.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz maintains that globalization only works for a few elite groups; whereas, the government should now reassert itself in terms o

+See More

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism.

Rose Prince

2019-02-07 07:25:00 Thursday ET

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism.

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism. The Trump administration seems to prefer bilateral negotiat

+See More