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

Global trade transforms from labor cost arbitrage to high-skill knowledge work.

Laura Hermes

2019-01-29 10:33:00 Tuesday ET

Global trade transforms from labor cost arbitrage to high-skill knowledge work.

Global trade transforms from labor cost arbitrage to high-skill knowledge work. In fact, multinational manufacturers have been trying to create global suppl

+See More

From crony capitalism to state capitalism, what economic policy lessons can we learn from Putin's reign in Russia?

Jonah Whanau

2018-03-13 07:34:00 Tuesday ET

From crony capitalism to state capitalism, what economic policy lessons can we learn from Putin's reign in Russia?

From crony capitalism to state capitalism, what economic policy lessons can we learn from President Putin's current reign in Russia? In the 15 years of

+See More

Elizabeth Warren warns of Trump financial reforms that shake up the 5 key pillars of bank regulation.

Dan Rochefort

2017-11-19 08:37:00 Sunday ET

Elizabeth Warren warns of Trump financial reforms that shake up the 5 key pillars of bank regulation.

In 2000, a former law professor at Harvard proposed establishing the Financial Product Safety Commission in order to protect consumer rights in the provisio

+See More

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

Jonah Whanau

2016-10-19 00:00:00 Wednesday ET

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, offers several key lessons for stock market investors: When the press o

+See More

The global pandemic crisis helps reshape international finance, trade, and technology.

James Campbell

2021-02-01 10:19:00 Monday ET

The global pandemic crisis helps reshape international finance, trade, and technology.

In recent times, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the fiscal-debt-to-GDP ratio of most rich economies would rise from 95% in 2018 to 135%

+See More

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Charlene Vos

2018-02-03 07:42:00 Saturday ET

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Quant Quake 2.0 shakes investor confidence with rampant stock market fears and doubts during the recent Fed Chair transition from Janet Yellen to Jerome Pow

+See More