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

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation.

Becky Berkman

2018-08-01 11:43:00 Wednesday ET

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation.

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation. The tech titan sells about the same number of smart phones or 41 million iPhones

+See More

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer.

Apple Boston

2019-08-20 07:33:00 Tuesday ET

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer.

The recent British pound depreciation is a big Brexit barometer. Britain appoints former London mayor and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as the prime minis

+See More

Mario Draghi declares the ECB agreement on a thorny set of revisions to Basel 3.

Rose Prince

2017-11-25 06:34:00 Saturday ET

Mario Draghi declares the ECB agreement on a thorny set of revisions to Basel 3.

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, heads the international committee of financial supervisors and has declared their landmark agreement o

+See More

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress.

Olivia London

2019-02-06 10:36:49 Wednesday ET

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress.

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress. Several key themes emerge from this presidential address. First, President

+See More

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath predicts no global recession with key downside risks at this delicate moment.

Charlene Vos

2019-04-29 08:35:00 Monday ET

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath predicts no global recession with key downside risks at this delicate moment.

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath predicts no global recession with key downside risks at this delicate moment. First, trade tensions remain one of the key

+See More

Louis Kaplow strives to find a delicate balance between efficiency gains and redistributive taxes in the social welfare function.

Chanel Holden

2023-07-07 10:29:00 Friday ET

Louis Kaplow strives to find a delicate balance between efficiency gains and redistributive taxes in the social welfare function.

Louis Kaplow strives to find a delicate balance between efficiency gains and redistributive taxes in the social welfare function. Louis Kaplow (2010)

+See More