Trillion dollar coin

[Taco John]

Anyone else excited about this idea?


With President Obama having kicked off debt ceiling negotiations by vowing not to negotiate over the debt ceiling, a new option for paying off the nation’s considerable tab is gaining momentum with cheeky fiscal and monetary wonks.

It goes like this: Should Congress fail to extend the U.S. debt limit — reached again on Dec. 31 — the president could ask the Treasury to begin printing trillion dollar coins (in a process explained mostly seriously by Jim Pethokoukis on his American Enterprise Institute blog), a number of which could then be put toward fulfilling debt obligations in the event new legislation stalls in Congress.

While there are laws in place to regulate how much paper, gold, silver or copper currency can be circulated by the government, there is nothing so clearly stated when it comes to platinum. That door open, the Treasury could have the U.S. Mint melt and mold a few trillion dollars of it, then ship the goods over to the Federal Reserve for safekeeping until the time comes to pay the bills.

The more difficult part comes sometime after the decision is made to coin the platinum and before the Mint gets to work in sculpting the pieces.

At that point, the American people must decide whose face will adorn the trillion dollar trinket. The process to determine the “specs” of the coin, U.S. Mint Public Affairs Specialist Genevieve Billia warns, must be “determined by legislation,” creating the potential for another congressional impasse.

Also to note: The likeness sculpted into its side must belong to a dead person, ruling out early favorite Ikea Monkey, but boosting the candidacies of Ronald Reagan and John Maynard Keynes.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ng-end-around/

[Stewie]

I'm pretty sure the "entities" that could fulfill that platinum order aren't interested in trading it for dollars.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

We pay our debts. It is mandated in the constitution. Congress authorized and spent the money. We have to pay it back. For Congress to default on our debts that they authorized is a violation on the constitution is it not ?

One could make an argument that a lot of that debt is illegal. Let's have a full audit of the Federal Reserve first.


"We owe it to ourselves."

[Comrade Crapski]

Originally Posted by Taco John

No. The value of the coin is 1 trillion dollars. Dont you see? It's valued at 1 trillion dollars because it will say "1 trillion dollars" on it and will be issued by the government.

The sad part is, that's how Barry, Timmy, and Ben really think.

[Comrade Crapski]

http://confoundedinterest.wordpress....cits-and-debt/

But for the sake of discussion, platinum is currently trading at $1,560 an ounce. In order to produce a trillion dollar platinum coin of platinum, it would require 641,025,641.03 ounces of platinum. Or a coin weighing 40,064,102.56 lbs!

Perhaps we should mint wooden nickels. Just change nickel to $1 trillion dollars. It would be just as effective and a lot lighter.

[theelusiveeightrop]

Will the Bradbury Mint be selling commerative versions?

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Stewie

I'm pretty sure the "entities" that could fulfill that platinum order aren't interested in trading it for dollars.

There would only be one entity in this hypothetical scenario: the Fed.

The US Treasury would deposit the X trillion dollar coins in a fed vault, and the fed would credit the USA's account with X trillion dollars.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Taco John

The process to determine the “specs” of the coin, U.S. Mint Public Affairs Specialist Genevieve Billia warns, must be “determined by legislation,” creating the potential for another congressional impasse.

If this is a real roadblock that can not be overcome by executive order, then this option is dead. Congress would refuse to pass a bill determining the specs of the coin. If they were willing to pass that bill, they would have simply raised the debt ceiling instead.

[alnorth]

The only other potential way around the debt ceiling is the 14th amendment argument. Pelosi and Bill Clinton have both said they would invoke the 14th amendment to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional, and start borrowing the money needed to pay bills unless the courts stopped them.

Obama apparently considered that option, but late last year he said that he is not convinced that the 14th amendment allows him to do that. The question is, what is a "debt" under the 14th amendment? Does it include future spending authorized by congress? The right (and Obama, apparently) say no, it only applies to money already borrowed (though if our income was ever less than the debt service, then I guess Obama could ignore the debt ceiling, but thats not even close to being the case)

Under that interpretation, Obama is required to pay the debt service by any means necessary, but once thats done its apparently up to him to decide who doesn't get paid, and he can choose not to pay whoever the hell he feels like to balance the budget.

Since the Republicans would likely get blamed for it, I'm guessing Obama will not pay a portion of medicare, maybe also delay income tax refunds, and let the GOP hang for it.

[InChiefsHell]

Imagine losing that ****er in the cushions of your couch...

[Amnorix]

Makes no sense and don't see it happening.