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

Warren Buffett places his $58 billion stock bets on Apple, American Express, and Goldman Sachs.

Rose Prince

2019-04-05 08:25:00 Friday ET

Warren Buffett places his $58 billion stock bets on Apple, American Express, and Goldman Sachs.

Warren Buffett places his $58 billion stock bets on Apple, American Express, and Goldman Sachs. Berkshire Hathaway owns $18 billion equity stakes in America

+See More

Capital structure choices for private firms

James Campbell

2022-09-15 11:38:00 Thursday ET

Capital structure choices for private firms

Capital structure choices for private firms The Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) database provides comprehensive panel data on 5,000+ American private firms fr

+See More

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

Charlene Vos

2018-07-21 13:35:00 Saturday ET

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which effectively broadens the jurisdiction of

+See More

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2023-02-28 11:30:00 Tuesday ET

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism.

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism. As of 2022-2023, global inflation has gradually declined from the peak of 9.8% d

+See More

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential user growth.

Fiona Sydney

2020-05-28 15:37:00 Thursday ET

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential user growth.

Platform enterprises leverage network effects, scale economies, and information cascades to boost exponential business growth. Laure Reillier and Benoit

+See More

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Amy Hamilton

2019-03-03 10:39:00 Sunday ET

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries. Retail traders can list items for sale on eBay and then acquire these items economically on

+See More