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

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

James Campbell

2017-06-03 05:35:00 Saturday ET

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

Fundamental value investors, who intend to manage their stock portfolios like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, now find it more difficult to ferret out indiv

+See More

Tony Robbins recommends portfolio optimization only once a year.

Laura Hermes

2017-02-19 07:41:00 Sunday ET

Tony Robbins recommends portfolio optimization only once a year.

In his recent book on personal finance, Tony Robbins recommends that each investor should rebalance his or her investment portfolio *only once a year* to in

+See More

Paul Morland suggests that demographic changes lead to modern economic growth in the current world.

Laura Hermes

2023-10-28 12:29:00 Saturday ET

Paul Morland suggests that demographic changes lead to modern economic growth in the current world.

Paul Morland suggests that demographic changes lead to modern economic growth in the current world. Paul Morland (2019)   The human tide: how

+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

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties.

Rose Prince

2018-10-15 09:33:00 Monday ET

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties.

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties such as cardiovascular medications an

+See More

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Dan Rochefort

2018-11-15 12:35:00 Thursday ET

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases. Buffett sends a positive signal to the stock market with the Berks

+See More