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

Leon Cooperman points out that the current Trump stock market rally now approaches normalization.

Amy Hamilton

2017-10-27 06:35:00 Friday ET

Leon Cooperman points out that the current Trump stock market rally now approaches normalization.

Leon Cooperman, Chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, points out that the current Trump stock market rally now approaches normalization. The U.S. stock market

+See More

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China.

Joseph Corr

2020-01-01 13:39:00 Wednesday ET

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China.

President Trump approves a phase one trade agreement with China. This approval averts the introduction of new tariffs on Chinese imports. In return, China s

+See More

Harvard financial economist Alberto Cavallo empirically shows the recent *Amazon effect* of faster retail price adjustments.

Amy Hamilton

2018-08-23 11:34:00 Thursday ET

Harvard financial economist Alberto Cavallo empirically shows the recent *Amazon effect* of faster retail price adjustments.

Harvard financial economist Alberto Cavallo empirically shows the recent *Amazon effect* that online retailers such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay etc use fas

+See More

Chinese trade delegation offers to boost purchases of U.S. agricultural products to reach an interim trade deal with the Trump administration.

Peter Prince

2019-11-03 12:30:00 Sunday ET

Chinese trade delegation offers to boost purchases of U.S. agricultural products to reach an interim trade deal with the Trump administration.

Chinese trade delegation offers to boost purchases of U.S. agricultural products to reach an interim trade deal with the Trump administration. Chinese Vice

+See More

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

Jonah Whanau

2016-10-19 00:00:00 Wednesday ET

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, offers several key lessons for stock market investors: When the press o

+See More

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Joseph Corr

2023-10-14 10:32:00 Saturday ET

The new antitrust enforcement paradigm

Jonathan Baker frames the current debate over antitrust merger review and enforcement in America. Jonathan Baker (2019)   The antitrust paradi

+See More