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

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

Charlene Vos

2017-11-07 09:38:00 Tuesday ET

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman has run both eBay and Hewlett Packard within Fortune 500 and now has decided to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant

+See More

Most sustainably successful business leaders make a mark in the world, create a positive impact, and challenge the status quo.

Peter Prince

2020-08-12 07:25:00 Wednesday ET

Most sustainably successful business leaders make a mark in the world, create a positive impact, and challenge the status quo.

Most sustainably successful business leaders make a mark in the world, create a positive impact, and challenge the status quo. Jerry Porras, Stewart Emer

+See More

Timothy Geithner shares his reflections on the post-crisis macro financial stress tests for U.S. banks.

Fiona Sydney

2023-04-07 12:29:00 Friday ET

Timothy Geithner shares his reflections on the post-crisis macro financial stress tests for U.S. banks.

Timothy Geithner shares his reflections on the post-crisis macro financial stress tests for U.S. banks. Timothy Geithner (2014)   Macrofinanci

+See More

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018.

Apple Boston

2018-01-13 08:39:00 Saturday ET

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018.

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018. In more than 4 years since 2014, U.S. government

+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

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer.

Apple Boston

2019-08-20 07:33:00 Tuesday ET

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer.

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer. Britain appoints former London mayor and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as the prime minis

+See More