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

President Trump refreshes American fiscal fears and sovereign debt concerns through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Jacob Miramar

2025-06-21 05:25:00 Saturday ET

President Trump refreshes American fiscal fears and sovereign debt concerns through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

President Trump refreshes American fiscal fears, worries, and concerns through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimat

+See More

Stock Synopsis: ESG value and momentum stock market portfolio strategies

Fiona Sydney

2024-03-26 09:30:00 Tuesday ET

Stock Synopsis: ESG value and momentum stock market portfolio strategies

Stock Synopsis: ESG value and momentum stock market portfolio strategies Since 2013, we have been delving into the broad topics of ESG (Environmental, So

+See More

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Jacob Miramar

2018-01-12 07:37:00 Friday ET

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

The Economist delves into the modern perils of tech titans such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. These key tech titans often receive plaudits for mak

+See More

Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan discerns asset bubbles in the American stock and bond markets in early-2018.

Jonah Whanau

2018-01-21 07:25:00 Sunday ET

Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan discerns asset bubbles in the American stock and bond markets in early-2018.

As he refrains from using the memorable phrase *irrational exuberance* to assess bullish investor sentiments, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan discerns as

+See More

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Peter Prince

2019-07-27 17:37:00 Saturday ET

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark. As Stanford finance

+See More

The top Sino-U.S. tech titans now reach the trademark total market capitalization of $4 trillion as of July 2018.

Fiona Sydney

2018-07-07 10:33:00 Saturday ET

The top Sino-U.S. tech titans now reach the trademark total market capitalization of $4 trillion as of July 2018.

The east-west tech rivalry intensifies between BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) and FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). These Sino-U.S.

+See More