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

What are our proprietary alpha stock signals?

Andy Yeh Alpha

2020-09-11 10:22:00 Friday ET

What are our proprietary alpha stock signals?

AYA fintech network platform provides proprietary alpha stock signals and personal finance tools. In recent times, we have completed our fresh website up

+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

Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism.

Jonah Whanau

2019-04-21 10:07:54 Sunday ET

Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism.

Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism. In accordance with the dual mandate of

+See More

Central banks in India, Thailand, and New Zealand lower their interest rates in response to the Federal Reserve rate cut.

Daisy Harvey

2019-09-11 09:31:00 Wednesday ET

Central banks in India, Thailand, and New Zealand lower their interest rates in response to the Federal Reserve rate cut.

Central banks in India, Thailand, and New Zealand lower their interest rates in a defensive response to the Federal Reserve recent rate cut. The central ban

+See More

A physicist derives a mathematical formula for success.

Chanel Holden

2019-03-07 12:39:00 Thursday ET

A physicist derives a mathematical formula for success.

A physicist derives a mathematical formula that success equates the product of both personal quality and the potential value of a random idea. As a Northeas

+See More

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation.

Fiona Sydney

2020-01-15 08:31:00 Wednesday ET

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation.

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation. In recent decades, wage growth, economic output, and productivity tend to stagnate as U.S.

+See More