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

David Solomon succeeds Lloyd Blankfein as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Fiona Sydney

2018-03-09 08:33:00 Friday ET

David Solomon succeeds Lloyd Blankfein as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs.

David Solomon succeeds Lloyd Blankfein as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs. Unlike his predecessors Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohn, Solomon has been an investmen

+See More

Tax policy pluralism for addressing special interests

Monica McNeil

2023-12-08 08:28:00 Friday ET

Tax policy pluralism for addressing special interests

Tax policy pluralism for addressing special interests Economists often praise as pluralism the interplay of special interest groups in public policy. In

+See More

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes greater public debt finance with minimal tax increases for the Green New Deal.

James Campbell

2019-03-23 09:31:00 Saturday ET

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes greater public debt finance with minimal tax increases for the Green New Deal.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes greater public debt finance with minimal tax increases for the Green New Deal. In accordance with the modern

+See More

China poses new economic, technological, and military threats to the U.S. and many western allies.

Joseph Corr

2024-02-05 11:26:00 Monday ET

China poses new economic, technological, and military threats to the U.S. and many western allies.

China poses new economic, technological, and military threats to the U.S. and many western allies. In the U.S. government assessment, China poses new eco

+See More

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Charlene Vos

2018-02-03 07:42:00 Saturday ET

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Quant Quake 2.0 shakes investor confidence with rampant stock market fears and doubts during the recent Fed Chair transition from Janet Yellen to Jerome Pow

+See More

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes from 2017 to 2026.

Olivia London

2026-02-02 12:30:00 Monday ET

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes from 2017 to 2026.

With U.S. fintech patent approval, accreditation, and protection for 20 years, our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indexes

+See More