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

College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment.

Fiona Sydney

2018-04-29 13:44:00 Sunday ET

College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment.

College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment in contrast to the 5.6%-6% lo

+See More

MIT professor and co-author Daron Acemoglu suggests that economic prosperity comes from high-wage job creation.

Fiona Sydney

2019-05-19 19:31:00 Sunday ET

MIT professor and co-author Daron Acemoglu suggests that economic prosperity comes from high-wage job creation.

MIT professor and co-author Daron Acemoglu suggests that economic prosperity comes from high-wage job creation. Progressive tax redistribution cannot achiev

+See More

President Trump applies an increasingly bellicose stance toward the Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani.

Jacob Miramar

2018-08-09 16:36:00 Thursday ET

President Trump applies an increasingly bellicose stance toward the Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani.

President Trump applies an increasingly bellicose stance toward the Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani as he rejects a global agreement to curb Iran's nuclea

+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

Goldman Sachs takes a $5 billion net income hit that results from its offshore cash repatriation under the Trump tax law.

Charlene Vos

2018-01-02 12:39:00 Tuesday ET

Goldman Sachs takes a $5 billion net income hit that results from its offshore cash repatriation under the Trump tax law.

Goldman Sachs takes a $5 billion net income hit that results from its offshore cash repatriation under the new Trump tax law. This income hit reflects 10%-1

+See More

Apple upstream suppliers such as Foxconn and Pegatron experience sharp share price declines during the Christmas 2017 holiday quarter.

Jacob Miramar

2018-11-21 11:36:00 Wednesday ET

Apple upstream suppliers such as Foxconn and Pegatron experience sharp share price declines during the Christmas 2017 holiday quarter.

Apple upstream suppliers from Foxconn and Pegatron to Radiance and Lumentum experience sharp share price declines during the Christmas 2017 holiday quarter.

+See More