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

France and Germany are the biggest beneficiaries of Sino-U.S. trade escalation.

Chanel Holden

2019-07-11 10:48:00 Thursday ET

France and Germany are the biggest beneficiaries of Sino-U.S. trade escalation.

France and Germany are the biggest beneficiaries of Sino-U.S. trade escalation, whereas, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan suffer from the current trade stando

+See More

E.U. antitrust regulators impose a fine on Qualcomm for advancing its exclusive microchip deal with Apple.

Fiona Sydney

2018-01-17 05:30:00 Wednesday ET

E.U. antitrust regulators impose a fine on Qualcomm for advancing its exclusive microchip deal with Apple.

European Union antitrust regulators impose a fine on Qualcomm for advancing its key exclusive microchip deal with Apple to block out rivals such as Intel an

+See More

President Trump meets the CEOs of tech titans such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

John Fourier

2017-06-15 07:32:00 Thursday ET

President Trump meets the CEOs of tech titans such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

President Donald Trump has discussed with the CEOs of large multinational corporations such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. This discussion include

+See More

The recent arrest of HuaWei CFO may upend the trade truce between America and China.

Fiona Sydney

2018-12-13 08:30:00 Thursday ET

The recent arrest of HuaWei CFO may upend the trade truce between America and China.

The recent arrest of HuaWei senior executive manager may upend the trade truce between America and China. At the request of several U.S. authorities, Canadi

+See More

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies in Congress to rise up to the challenge of public outrage.

Rose Prince

2018-04-07 09:36:00 Saturday ET

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies in Congress to rise up to the challenge of public outrage.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies in Congress to rise up to the challenge of public outrage in response to the Cambridge Analytica data debacle and use

+See More

The social media factor serves as a new measure of investor sentiment in addition to the fundamental factors.

Rose Prince

2017-05-07 06:39:00 Sunday ET

The social media factor serves as a new measure of investor sentiment in addition to the fundamental factors.

While the original five-factor asset pricing model arises from a quasi-lifetime of top empirical research by Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama and his long-time co

+See More