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

Capital structure theory and practice

Jonah Whanau

2022-03-15 10:32:00 Tuesday ET

Capital structure theory and practice

Capital structure theory and practice  The genesis of modern capital structure theory traces back to the seminal work of Modigliani and Miller (1958

+See More

Fed Chair Jerome Powell sees a remarkably positive outlook for the U.S. economy in early-October 2018.

Charlene Vos

2018-10-03 11:37:00 Wednesday ET

Fed Chair Jerome Powell sees a remarkably positive outlook for the U.S. economy in early-October 2018.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell sees a remarkably positive outlook for the U.S. economy right after the recent interest rate hike as of September 2018. He humbly su

+See More

What are the best online stock market investment tools?

Amy Hamilton

2021-07-07 05:22:00 Wednesday ET

What are the best online stock market investment tools?

What are the best online stock market investment tools? Stock trading has seen an explosion since the start of the pandemic. As people lost their jobs an

+See More

President Trump meets Chinese President Xi for better economic reforms.

Rose Prince

2017-03-21 09:37:00 Tuesday ET

President Trump meets Chinese President Xi for better economic reforms.

Trump and Xi meet in the most important summit on earth this year. Trump has promised to retaliate against China's currency misalignment, steel trade

+See More

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

Daphne Basel

2019-10-31 13:38:00 Thursday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

  AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube October 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of October 2019: (1)

+See More

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment.

Becky Berkman

2024-10-14 11:33:00 Monday ET

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment.

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment. We are broadly positive about the

+See More