Minting a trillion dollar platinum coin

[Cain]

Language of Shakespeare, innit.

[Durivan]

The plan isn't as nutty as it seems.  The coin will be small and not have that much platinum in it, just have a high dollar value on the face of the coin. The idea behind it is it is a way to print money instead of borrowing.  The reason it sounds so ridiculous is because it is the only way for the president to do this without congress is with the a literal reading of a specific law. The law allows the treasury to issue platinum coins of a design and valuation of the Treasury Secretaries choosing.  Supposedly it was meant for commemorative coins. The law did however come after the debt ceiling crisis between Gingrich and Clinton, so some say it was worded the way it is just for this use.

Despite how stupid it sounds it is actually the best idea I've seen to deal with the debt limit and debt in general.  In our current system money is only generated by debt, debt that requires more in payment than what was borrowed. This means for the economy just to continue at the same level overall debt has to continuously increase or some debts have to be unpaid. Whining about the governments debt in such a system is even sillier than minting a trillion dollar platinum coin to get around it.

Ideally we'd have congress decide that a certain amount of spending in excess of taxes can just be printed instead of borrowed, but with our current congress,  both republicans and democrats, there is no chance of that happening. Anyway, there is also no chance Obama would take the platinum coin option, as you've said it sounds (and to some degree is) rather silly and he doesn't want that as his legacy. Besides it would piss off the banks and the rich for the government to print is own money, that is another reason it just won't happen.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We totally didn't understand that, thank you for patiently explaining it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

The Suzy B. Anthony coin mistake. x 1 trillion.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

The Suzy B. Anthony coin mistake. x 1 trillion.

x 250 Billion.  The SBAD error is usually made by giving out a SBAD instead of a quarter.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

The Suzy B. Anthony coin mistake. x 1 trillion.

x 250 Billion.  The SBAD error is usually made by giving out a SBAD instead of a quarter.

$999,999,999,999.75?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

The Suzy B. Anthony coin mistake. x 1 trillion.

x 250 Billion.  The SBAD error is usually made by giving out a SBAD instead of a quarter.

$999,999,999,999.75?

Whoops.  Yeah.

It's a good thing I don't actually have to account for my annual budget, I suppose.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I want to accidentally get it in my change.
No, scratch that, they'd riddle me with bullets if I tried to spend it.
I imagine it will have some kind of tracking device in it and never leave DC.

"Hey, Joe.  We have a problem.  Your register came up short a trillion dollars."

The Suzy B. Anthony coin mistake. x 1 trillion.

x 250 Billion.  The SBAD error is usually made by giving out a SBAD instead of a quarter.

$999,999,999,999.75?

Whoops.  Yeah.

It's a good thing I don't actually have to account for my annual budget, I suppose.

I sat there counting the 9's a few times. It's a little boggling. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

We totally didn't understand that, thank you for patiently explaining it.

You fail to account for my level of retarded. I have no idea what the fuck any of this is supposed to mean. 

[Cain]

Obama is trying overly clever, legalistic tricks in case the Republicans play hardball over the debt ceiling.

The thing is, ITT, no-one denied he could do that, theoretically, what we were talking about was whether it was a good idea to allow the President to unilaterally declare powers which should rest with Congress. 

I know it's a kind of naive liberalist concern, that the juggernaut death machinery of the USA is not observing correct formal division of power, but at the same time, the USA is increasingly moving towards the stage where all useful powers are vested in the office of the Presidency, making whoever holds the office effectively an elected dictator.

One could argue that the House Republicans, in their psychotic break from reality, have abrogated their responsibilities towards the electorate and the state, and that's an argument I have a certain amount of sympathy for.  At the same time, political dysfunction is only solved in the short term by these kind of solutions, and the long-term implications make them far worse than what is currently happening.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Obama is trying overly clever, legalistic tricks in case the Republicans play hardball over the debt ceiling.

The thing is, ITT, no-one denied he could do that, theoretically, what we were talking about was whether it was a good idea to allow the President to unilaterally declare powers which should rest with Congress. 

I know it's a kind of naive liberalist concern, that the juggernaut death machinery of the USA is not observing correct formal division of power, but at the same time, the USA is increasingly moving towards the stage where all useful powers are vested in the office of the Presidency, making whoever holds the office effectively an elected dictator.

One could argue that the House Republicans, in their psychotic break from reality, have abrogated their responsibilities towards the electorate and the state, and that's an argument I have a certain amount of sympathy for.  At the same time, political dysfunction is only solved in the short term by these kind of solutions, and the long-term implications make them far worse than what is currently happening.

Yeah, breaking the rules to fix another breach of the rules isn't a fix.

And you hit the nail on the head, Cain.  We're perfectly happy with a dictator, as long as we elected the bastard.  See:  Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, and Cheney's thing.

[LMNO]

The thing is, the whole debt ceiling is a weird artifact to begin with, and is inherently contradictory. Obama is legally bound to spend the budget congress passed. He can't NOT spend the money without breaking the law. Then congress says they won't raise cover the debt *they already authorized* when they passed the budget. It's an intentional contradiction that purposefully fucks the president.

Obamas solution is essentially printing enough money to close the gap the congress already created. And according to Neo-Keynesian thinking, when interest rates are close to zero, printing money won't lead to inflation.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The thing is, the whole debt ceiling is a weird artifact to begin with, and is inherently contradictory. Obama is legally bound to spend the budget congress passed. He can't NOT spend the money without breaking the law. Then congress says they won't raise cover the debt *they already authorized* when they passed the budget. It's an intentional contradiction that purposefully fucks the president.

Obamas solution is essentially printing enough money to close the gap the congress already created. And according to Neo-Keynesian thinking, when interest rates are close to zero, printing money won't lead to inflation.

Well, here's the thing:

1.  Obama cannot be reelected.  That means, short of impeaching him, there's nothing they can do to him.
2.  Congress is up for election in 2014.

The sad thing is, they are STILL unable to sniff the wind to see which way the farts are blowing.  They STILL think that pandering to their rapidly-shrinking base is going to somehow sweep the polls.

I think they're in for a very rude shock.