Goldman Sachs CEO Solomon warns of a US 'reckoning' on government debt

Oct 30 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon on Thursday expressed concerns that mounting U.S. government debt will pose more of a problem if the economy does not grow faster. "If we continue on the current course, and we don't take the growth level up... there will be a reckoning," Solomon told the Economic Club of Washington.

The U.S. national debt recently hit $38 trillion.

"We should be concerned about this, not sounding an alarm bell," he said. "But I do think over time, this is an issue."

"The pandemic played an accelerating role, and it doesn't seem like we have the ability to pull it back. And so we took in the debt in the last 15 plus years, and since the financial crisis, from $7 trillion to $38 trillion." The U.S. economy has been in pretty good shape, minimizing chances of a recession in the near term, Solomon said.

Despite concerns about the U.S. dollar's role weakening in the economy, he does not see its status eroding as the global reserve currency.

"When you get around the world, and you look at all the capital flows around the world, global allocators, 50% of their capital is coming into the U.S.," he said. "They might be hedging the dollar a little bit differently now than they might have been for the last few years, but I think it's more at the margin... it's something to watch. But I'm not concerned that there's some fundamental shift." This month, Goldman Sachs (GS) beat Wall Street expectations for third-quarter profit as investment bankers capitalized on a dealmaking resurgence. (Reporting by Saeed Azhar in New York and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru, editing by Lananh Nguyen and David Gregorio)