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

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA).

Becky Berkman

2019-03-21 12:33:00 Thursday ET

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA).

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA). These tech titans have become

+See More

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit.

Rose Prince

2019-09-21 09:25:00 Saturday ET

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit.

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit with respect to Sino-U.S. trade conflict resolution, global climate change, containment fo

+See More

Corporate cash management

Jacob Miramar

2022-03-25 09:34:00 Friday ET

Corporate cash management

Corporate cash management The empirical corporate finance literature suggests four primary motives for firms to hold cash. These motives include the tra

+See More

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Peter Prince

2018-09-13 19:38:00 Thursday ET

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying on behalf of Microsoft before U.S. Congress. Both drop out of Harvard to

+See More

President Trump withdraws America from the Iran nuclear agreement and revives economic sanctions on Iran for better negotiations.

Chanel Holden

2018-05-06 07:30:00 Sunday ET

President Trump withdraws America from the Iran nuclear agreement and revives economic sanctions on Iran for better negotiations.

President Trump withdraws America from the Iran nuclear agreement and revives economic sanctions on Iran for better negotiations as western allies Britain,

+See More

European economic integration seems to have gone backwards primarily due to the recent Brexit movement.

Daisy Harvey

2019-10-19 16:35:00 Saturday ET

European economic integration seems to have gone backwards primarily due to the recent Brexit movement.

European economic integration seems to have gone backwards primarily due to the recent Brexit movement. Brexit, key European sovereign debt, and French and

+See More