2018-06-01 07:30:00 Fri ET
treasury deficit debt employment inflation interest rate macrofinance fiscal stimulus economic growth fiscal budget public finance treasury bond treasury yield sovereign debt sovereign wealth fund tax cuts government expenditures
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.
2018-11-23 09:39:00 Friday ET
Former White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn points out that there is no instant cure for the Sino-U.S. trade dilemma. After the U.S. midterm electio
2023-03-21 11:28:00 Tuesday ET
Barry Eichengreen compares the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession as historical episodes of economic woes. Barry Eichengreen (2016)
2018-01-01 06:30:00 Monday ET
As former chairman of the British Financial Services Authority and former director of the London School of Economics, Howard Davies shares his ingenious ins
2018-05-02 06:32:00 Wednesday ET
What are the primary pros and cons of free trade or fair trade in the current Sino-American quagmire? Free trade means allowing goods and services to move a
2018-03-03 11:37:00 Saturday ET
President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval and constitutional amendment for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with more favorable trade de
2017-07-19 11:35:00 Wednesday ET
This brief article encapsulates the timeless wisdom of Warren Buffett's famous quotes on fundamental stock investment, fear and greed, patience, risk co