Forget Bitcoins, let's talk Trillion Dollar Platinum coins

No, really, this is a real idea.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...oin-could-solve-the-debt-ceiling-problem.html

Someone would just fucking lose it.

Or accidentally use it in a laundry machine.

I'm a huge proponent of the trillion dollar coin idea. Or more precisely I think I'd prefer them to strike a thousand billion dollar coins cause that would be a lot cooler in photos.

Regardless, the idea that congress should get to pass appropriations bills and then fail to authorize the borrowing is disgusting.

This is likely the least amount of uncertainty (meaning it's just done and over with), but I'd really like the constitutional fight so the debt ceiling gets blown to shit forever. It's an idiotic rule in which Congress authorizes purchases, then fails to authorize payments. That's crazy dysfunctional.

If they make it 100' wide it's harder to lose. Also, reinforces the whole banana republic thing.

I find myself agreeing with Kevin Drum that there's no way a court would go along with this. And Obama is never going to do it. At best, it's a negotiating tactic some Democrats are using, which I'm all in favor of.

And the linked article is a great example of why "X is just so crazy that it might work" is not an actual argument. The only thing in there remotely resembling an analysis of if this weird idea is actually legal is an assertion that it is along with a link to the law.

Make it the size of a quarter, and name it the Ron Paul Fiat Currency Memorial Coin.

edit: the theory the coin idea runs on is that the Supremes would take any tortured logic they could in order to just let the debt ceiling increase. But that's also the logic that makes me want it to be a constitutional fight.

The Supremes may bitch and moan, but they're going to hunt like hell to not be the ones who retroactively tanked the US economy by declaring whatever Obama did to fix it illegal. What I hope doesn't happen is giving the GOP a bunch of shit every year to make them extend it a little bit. I actually want a fight that puts this to bed one way or another permanently.

What I really hope is that the last shakeup caused enough of a stir in the GOP money-men that Obama can use them as leverage. Threatening to not pay our bills is seriously bad shit. Making this into a yearly dance for political reasons is even worse.

Non-lawyers saying things about how the law works is always great fun for me. Article sez "Courts are expected to rule based on the most sensible interpretation of a law, not its most tortured possible construction" and notes legislative history to prove his point. But legislative history is legally irrelevant to determination of the effect of a statute that is unambiguous; that's the first quotation on the Wikipedia page for statutory interpretation! And that statute seems pretty clearly to permit the minting of money in any denomination. There is, of course, the canon that the legislature presumptively would not have intended an absurd result. The takeaway, as with any discussion of statutory interpretation and The Court, is that competing canons of construction usually can reasonably be employed to reach any result the justices want.

Almost everything I've read on the trillion-dollar-coin takes the same approach as the article linked in the OP, which is to gloss over the question of whether or not it's legal when that's the only question that matters. If I understand you correctly, sinfony, you are saying that any "legal analysis" would be of the trying-to-guess-how-certain-justices-will-rule ilk, which I find tedious and unenlightening. I agree that the law is unambiguous, and I am most emphatically not a lawyer, but I do follow the news so I know that an actual Supreme Court Justice used a hypothetical broccoli mandate in oral arguments for the most high profile case before the Court in years.

Anyway, I hold to my assertion that Obama is never going to even float this idea. It sounds like the kind of crazy conspriacy theory that would gain traction on right-wing talk radio -- Obama is secretly minting trillion-dollar platinum coins to circumvent Congress and the Federal Reserve so he ruin the economy with inflation. Actually doing it would give credence to every other crazy-sounding right-wing conspiracy theory.

This is a great solution if only because it shows how stupid the "debt ceiling" problem really is that the second most practical solution is as ludicrous as this while still functioning to solve the problem. The first most practical solution would be Congress fixing the matter for good, but lots of luck with that one.

It's legal in a "that probably is a mistake" way. Meaning that it would come down to the Justices trying to argue that the law is an Oops that wasn't intended, versus saying "nope, law says it's cool, up to Congress to fix broken law language"

Logically, they'd say the latter. The coin idea basically runs on them using that interpretation entirely due to the urgency of the matter (if they floated the coin and used it, assume a month of legal bullshit that would be utter chaos if the supremes then said it was never legit and that money didn't exist)

It's still a gamble, which is why it's being floated as a last ditch effort. IMO the better last ditch is to not try and play that game, and pick a constitutional fight by claiming the Budget authorized the debt increase because the President is legally obligated to spend what Congress said to spend. Thus, he's obviously allowed to borrow more money to do so. Without that, he'd have been legally mandated to do something that was impossible. To stop spending and default would in theory be illegal.

This is why I think Obama would win this fight: he's been legally obligated to do something that he's being legally prevented from doing. Both by the same group (Congress). One of those two forces (mandate to spend, or debt ceiling) has to be voided in that case.

Somebody doesn't understand how this works...



Oh right that's the NRCC.

I think it's a terrible idea.

I certainly agree that the debt ceiling being raised is implicitly authorized (and this whole debate should be a non-issue), but I see printing a trillion dollar coin as changing the conversation to how Democrats are going around the law and inventing money to keep spending. You're already seeing it:

Imagine the traction that'd get if Obama actually signed on.

If the House GOP is willing to damage the economy, then let them. They can enjoy the months of media coverage leading into 2014.

No. Fuck that.

It should be telling that one party does not understand the system of currency our country uses, and still wishes to be in charge of it.

Damaging the economy isn't an abstract chit in a political board game; you're talking about the lives of thousands - if not millions - of people being negatively impacted. While that may be what it ultimately comes to, I don't think it's appropriate to consider the issue only in terms of potential electoral ramifications, and likewise I think the relevant parties need to explore every avenue that offers a chance to avoid such an outcome, even if they ultimately can't take them.

That freeze frame is tremendous.

Also, hell yes they should do this. They should do it today instead of negotiating, show them they mean business. This proposal is not the ridiculous part of this stupid thing. The first debt ceiling fight was by a large margin the dumbest legislative problem ever, and this time it's exponentially dumber since these idiots have already seen the hell the first one wrought. I do not care one tiny little bit what the Republicans have to say about it. The problem isn't the debt ceiling, it's their own insane obstructionism. There's obviously not going to be a bipartisan solution to it.

That's more than fair, it's just frustrating to watch our duly elected representatives play with our economy over what should be a non-starter and it's easy to let that frustration boil out.

I don't want to see it happen. At the same time, I don't want this to become a thing that dogs every President sitting over a mixed Congress from here on out. (I'm NOT saying the Democrats are anywhere near as crazy as the House GOP, but political tactics that work over a long enough time scale..) Ideally, it gets fixed by a court at some point.

This'll be the second time for the House GOP, and the idea of them getting rewarded for it through concessions or political ammo (like the coin) makes me cringe.

I don't see the coin as a reward. More of a consolation prize. Yes, it will give them one more context in which to whine that the Spendocrats love to spend all the money. Big whoop; that's all they ever talk about as it is. Meanwhile, the President will have actually done something to save us from these maniacs with whom there is no chance of reasonable compromise or meaningful negotiation. And really, decisive unilateral action from the White House is about our only hope at this point, because neither allowing the debt ceiling to be held hostage over and over again nor giving these psychos the kinds of concessions they want are going to lead to anything but disaster.

It doesn't have to be the coin, but it might as well be the coin. And honestly, I'd love it. My favorite thing would be if they were already minting it in secret and didn't even announce it until it was already done. The Republicans in Congress right now are deranged children, and if they can't stop hitting the other kids with their favorite toy it needs to be taken away by an adult.

I only support this plan if the coin looks exactly like this.

The problem is - as I see it - that we have a creaky mess of a governing system and one of the two parties is a nihilistic child. Minting the coin addresses neither, it only puts off the day of reckoning. I guess maybe that's a best case scenario, but if there's any hope of breaking the GOP then you probably have to take it.

Well, it fixes the debt ceiling stuff once and for all at least. Obama doesn't have the power to fix the root issue, sadly.

I agree he doesn't; ultimately that falls to the electorate. The question is do you provoke a fight and hope that public pressure breaks them once and for all (while risking all sorts of economic awfulness?) Or just continue to try and do your best to stay one step ahead of the damage they're doing? I emphasize that I really don't know what the right thing is; I just feel that given the level of nihilism on display and the disregard for real-world consequences, some level of awfulness is probably inevitable at this point.

You'd have to be a TERARIST MUSLIN to hate a trillion dollar coin like that!

Only if it came with miniature 747s.

I'm so sorry

ugh, TOO SOON to put in my order, as I do not currently have the funds

If my $20 notes are not backed by an equivalent amount of gold or silver, I demand that they weigh twenty pounds.

Actually I'm not sure this is even true. I did a quick search and found the Titanic Dead Weight Tonnage to be around 13,000 tons (I have no idea whether this is correct). If my calculations are correct 1 trillion dollars worth of platinum would come to 1941 tons which is far less than the Titanic's DWT. I don't have much experience calculating any of this stuff though so I could be dead wrong.
(1kg platinum = $51,500, 1,000,000,000,000/51,500=1,941,747/1000= 1,941t
http://www.titanicebook.com/dimensions.html Deadweight at designed draught - 13,550 tons (Typically including about 6,000 tons of coal)

The image is misleading. The text is clearly implying the Titanic would crash into a platinum iceburg.

This only proves that the birthers were right; Obama was born in the North Atlantic in 1912, forged as a giant being of pure metal and disappointment.

I think this is an incredibly dumb idea, but the fact that Republicans don't even understand how fiat currency works is delicious.

FTFY

I'm not an economist, so please forgive this dumb question: Why are we talking about a coin specifically as opposed to just printing $1 trillion in paper currency (which I understand would ALSO be a bad idea inflation-wise)?

I assume because then that money enters into circulation. The coin wouldn't ever enter into circulation.

So the idea is that the Treasury could spend it to take care of our obligations without it actually circulating?

Essentially, yes.

Man, the plot for National Treasure 3 pretty much just writes itself, don't it?

I CERTAINLY HOPE YOU REALIZE THAT THE PLOT FOR NATIONAL TREASURE 3 WILL ALMOST ASSUREDLY BE BASED ON THE CLOSING SCENE OF NATIONAL TREASURE 2 WHEREIN THE PRESIDENT PORTRAYED BY BRUCE "CHRISTOPHER "IN THE STAR TREK MOVIE" PIKE" GREENWOOD ASKS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN "BEN" GATES (nicolas cage) TO LOOK AT PAGE 47 IN THE BOOK OF SECRETS WHICH THEY HAD TAKEN FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND IF YOU THINK THAT THEY WOULD LET A PLOT LIKE THAT DANGLE THEN YOU SIR ARE IN FOR MANY SURPRISES OKAY!

The fact that you know all of that gives me cause to immediately judge you as a person based on your entertainment choices. I'm so sorry.