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

OECD cuts the global economic growth forecast from 3.5% to 3.3% for the current fiscal year 2019-2020.

Rose Prince

2019-03-27 11:28:00 Wednesday ET

OECD cuts the global economic growth forecast from 3.5% to 3.3% for the current fiscal year 2019-2020.

OECD cuts the global economic growth forecast from 3.5% to 3.3% for the current fiscal year 2019-2020. The global economy suffers from economic protraction

+See More

Many successful business organizations develop their distinctive capabilities and unique value propositions for strategic reasons.

Jacob Miramar

2020-09-17 12:28:00 Thursday ET

Many successful business organizations develop their distinctive capabilities and unique value propositions for strategic reasons.

Many successful business organizations develop their distinctive capabilities and unique value propositions for strategic reasons. Paul Leinwand and Cesa

+See More

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has released a 147-page report on U.S. financial deregulation.

Peter Prince

2017-05-25 08:35:00 Thursday ET

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has released a 147-page report on U.S. financial deregulation.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has released a 147-page report on financial deregulation under the Trump administration. This financial deregulation seeks

+See More

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Joseph Corr

2023-10-14 10:32:00 Saturday ET

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Jonathan Baker frames the current debate over antitrust merger review and enforcement in America. Jonathan Baker (2019)   The antitrust paradi

+See More

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China.

James Campbell

2019-01-09 07:33:00 Wednesday ET

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China.

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook points out the fact that he

+See More

Warren Buffett warns that the current cap ratio of U.S. stock market capitalization to real GDP seems to be much higher than the long-run average benchmark.

James Campbell

2019-08-24 14:38:00 Saturday ET

Warren Buffett warns that the current cap ratio of U.S. stock market capitalization to real GDP seems to be much higher than the long-run average benchmark.

Warren Buffett warns that the current cap ratio of U.S. stock market capitalization to real GDP seems to be much higher than the long-run average benchmark.

+See More