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

Netflix has an unsustainable business model in the meantime.

Becky Berkman

2019-05-02 13:30:00 Thursday ET

Netflix has an unsustainable business model in the meantime.

Netflix has an unsustainable business model in the meantime. Netflix maintains a small premium membership fee of $9-$14 per month for its unique collection

+See More

Tony Robbins summarizes several personal finance and investment lessons for the typical layperson.

Charlene Vos

2017-12-21 12:45:00 Thursday ET

Tony Robbins summarizes several personal finance and investment lessons for the typical layperson.

Tony Robbins summarizes several personal finance and investment lessons for the typical layperson: We cannot beat the stock market very often, so it w

+See More

Higher public debt levels, interest rate hikes, and subpar Chinese economic growth rates are the major risks to the world economy.

Daphne Basel

2019-01-23 11:32:00 Wednesday ET

Higher public debt levels, interest rate hikes, and subpar Chinese economic growth rates are the major risks to the world economy.

Higher public debt levels, global interest rate hikes, and subpar Chinese economic growth rates are the major risks to the world economy from 2019 to 2020.

+See More

Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin press the case for GOP tax legislation.

Jonah Whanau

2017-10-15 07:38:00 Sunday ET

Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin press the case for GOP tax legislation.

Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin both press the case for GOP tax legislation as economic relief for the middle-class without substantial t

+See More

President Donald Trump delivers his first state-of-the-union address.

Daphne Basel

2018-01-29 07:38:00 Monday ET

President Donald Trump delivers his first state-of-the-union address.

President Donald Trump delivers his first state-of-the-union address. Several key highlights touch on economic issues from fiscal stimulus and trade protect

+See More

Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook have become the most valuable public companies in the world.

Olivia London

2017-05-13 07:28:00 Saturday ET

Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook have become the most valuable public companies in the world.

America's Top 5 tech firms, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook have become the most valuable publicly listed companies in the world. These

+See More