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

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Monica McNeil

2022-10-05 08:24:00 Wednesday ET

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management Bates, Kahle, and Stulz (JF 2009) empirically find that public firms have doubled t

+See More

American parents often worry about money and upward mobility for their children.

Becky Berkman

2019-01-03 10:38:00 Thursday ET

American parents often worry about money and upward mobility for their children.

American parents often worry about money and upward mobility for their children. A recent New York Times survey suggests that nowadays American parents spen

+See More

The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war.

Dan Rochefort

2019-06-13 10:26:00 Thursday ET

The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war.

The Chinese Xi administration may choose to leverage its state dominance of rare-earth elements to better balance the current Sino-U.S. trade war. In recent

+See More

Warren Buffett shares his fresh economic insights and value investment strategies at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder forum.

Daphne Basel

2018-05-05 07:33:00 Saturday ET

Warren Buffett shares his fresh economic insights and value investment strategies at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder forum.

Warren Buffett shares his fresh economic insights and value investment strategies at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder forum in May 2018 despite the new GA

+See More

To secure better E.U. economic arrangements, Jeremy Corbyn encourages Labour legislators to back a second referendum on Brexit.

Olivia London

2019-06-17 11:25:00 Monday ET

To secure better E.U. economic arrangements, Jeremy Corbyn encourages Labour legislators to back a second referendum on Brexit.

To secure better economic arrangements with European Union, Jeremy Corbyn encourages Labour legislators to back a second referendum on Brexit. In recent tim

+See More

Apple releases its September 2018 trifecta of smart phones or iPhone X sequels: iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone XR.

Jacob Miramar

2018-09-15 11:35:00 Saturday ET

Apple releases its September 2018 trifecta of smart phones or iPhone X sequels: iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone XR.

Apple releases its September 2018 trifecta of smart phones or iPhone X sequels: iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone XR. Both iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max ha

+See More