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

International trade, immigration, and elite-mass conflict

Jacob Miramar

2023-12-09 08:28:00 Saturday ET

International trade, immigration, and elite-mass conflict

International trade, immigration, and elite-mass conflict The elite model portrays public policy as a reflection of the interests and values of elites. I

+See More

The current AI-driven stock market rally may not be an asset bubble yet.

Laura Hermes

2027-04-30 12:31:00 Friday ET

The current AI-driven stock market rally may not be an asset bubble yet.

In recent years, the current AI-driven stock market rally may or may not turn out to be another major asset bubble in global human history. For the pract

+See More

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA).

Becky Berkman

2019-03-21 12:33:00 Thursday ET

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA).

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up key tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (FAMGA). These tech titans have become

+See More

U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson encounters Brexit defeat during his new premiership.

Chanel Holden

2019-10-15 09:13:00 Tuesday ET

U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson encounters Brexit defeat during his new premiership.

U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson encounters defeat during his new premiership. The first major vote would pave the path of least resistance to passing a no

+See More

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Fiona Sydney

2017-12-09 08:37:00 Saturday ET

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor and media entrepreneur, criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder because i

+See More

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyze long-run crisis data to find the root causes of financial crises for better bank capital regulation and asset market stabilization.

Laura Hermes

2023-06-28 09:29:00 Wednesday ET

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyze long-run crisis data to find the root causes of financial crises for better bank capital regulation and asset market stabilization.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff delve into several centuries of cross-country crisis data to find the key root causes of financial crises for asset marke

+See More