WTFudge is this "trillion dollar platinum coin" nonsense?

[Henry Rogue]

The up side, it fits in a piggy bank.

 

[Reason]

someone did their math...

http://news.yahoo.com/trillion-doll...-end-around-110038545--abc-news-politics.html



These fuckers are just getting blunt. Since "there is a law how much paper, gold, silver or copper currency can be circulated" they are just going to go around it by using another metal. Why not just use bull shit as currency?

Too easy to counterfeit. They want a monopoly on that practice.

lmao

I love this forum.

 

[fatjohn]

Why do so many think that the value of the coin should be the same as the face value? Does a quarter hold exactly 25 cents of metal?
The main problem here is that the administrative branch of government would be bypassing the legislative branch by using a loophole in the law. Not illegal but definitely immoral.

 

[robert9712000]

They say there will be no inflation because no money will be pumped into the system.but i guarantee that since we owe China over a trillion dollars,they will not take one of these coins as payment.So even if we pretend we have a trillion extra dollars we will have to pay back our debt in regular bills.Now granted China will most likely never call in all there debt owed to them at once.

So as usual all it does it gives them a excuse to kick the can down the road a little farther but does nothing to solve the problem.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Why do so many think that the value of the coin should be the same as the face value? Does a quarter hold exactly 25 cents of metal?

Until they made a conscious decision to debase the currency, yes, yes indeed.

The main problem here is that the administrative branch of government would be bypassing the legislative branch by using a loophole in the law. Not illegal but definitely immoral.

 

[Patrick Henry]

Perspective

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-04/putting-trillion-dollars-platinum-perspective

 

[Henry Rogue]

Why do so many think that the value of the coin should be the same as the face value? Does a quarter hold exactly 25 cents of metal?
The main problem here is that the administrative branch of government would be bypassing the legislative branch by using a loophole in the law. Not illegal but definitely immoral.

I haven't researched it ,but my guess is post "64" quarters are over valued and pre "65" Quarters are under valued. Stamping a value on any money maybe part of the problem. Of course without a value, money would be an accounting nightmare.

 

[S.Shorland]

Declare Pamela Anderson to be your National Debt and there will be no problem servicing it.

 

[oyarde]

I haven't researched it ,but my guess is post "64" quarters are over valued and pre "65" Quarters are under valued. Stamping a value on any money maybe part of the problem. Of course without a value, money would be an accounting nightmare.

1964 back, $5.45 ea, afterwards, $2.00 of base metal value in a roll of quarters.

 

[mport1]

This just shows the system for the sham it is. I love it.

 

[ILUVRP]

i say we make 2 of them , we owe the federal reserve about 1.7 trillion , give them the 2 coins and get about 300 billion change back.

 

[MRK]

I'm kind of disappointed in some of you guys. That this is going to dilute the money supply should be terribly, completely obvious. Everyone knowing that the treasuy will be injecting $1 trillion dollars into the economy, even if it's going to sit in a bank vault and pay out billions at a time? That's going to devalue the dollar in the most troubling way.

The only real solution to the 20 trillion in debt problem is default. It's the only sensible way. Twenty generations will not be held responsible for the crushing interest and principal debt payments of a few generations.

 

[jclay2]

Can Someone Set the story straight with this trillion dollar coin madness. Is this at all a serious proposal or is the story mostly sarcasm for a solution to the debt ceiling "problem". If they really did utilized this, the $ would officially be dead then and there.. It is one thing for the fed to be printing a trillion dollars over a year to give to the banks, it is quite another for the treasury to just print trillion dollar coins.

 

[Steven Douglas]

What started off as sarcasm, or a metaphor for a 'nuclear option' based on a loophole in the law that states that Congress could technically mint a platinum coin, declare any arbitrary value it wanted, and use that to service or pay down debt without incurring interest. It actually got seriously embraced by some on the left, but in reality it's going nowhere (at least not in that form), for the reasons you stated and then some.

 

[rpwi]

Actually the idea has some merit.

There are two ways government can create the monetary base.

With the Fed issuing reserve deposits and using them to buy debt.

Or the treasury issuing coins (or even US Notes) and spending them into circulation.

The difference is that the treasury doesn't stockpile assets. A good thing as the Fed is a not an appropriate administrator of assets. Fed assets are churned, sold at underpriced values and bought at overpriced values. The income from these assets is secretly spent and wasted on a number of things like bank dividends and interest on bank reserves.

Super coins have long been an advocated tool by FRB opponents as a way of reducing the power and scope of the Fed and transferring it back to the treasury.

Well...wouldn't this create a ton of inflation? Well, creating more debt is inherently inflation but that is another story. What will happen is that treasury will trade the coin for a fed deposit, injecting new monetary base into the system. Because this was more monetary base than the Fed had anticipated, the "open market" will try to eat up reserves (sell securities) to restore balance to the Fed Fund Rate target.

So the end result will be that inflation won't change...but that the treasury instead of the Fed will control a significate portion of MB and the Fed will have less securities to play games with.

Perhaps a better "debt ceiling fix"...is the plan Ron called for. Default on the debt we owe to our-self. Not the greatest fix...but technically gets us past the limit and on the plus side reduces the power of the Fed.

 

[Steven Douglas]

You lost me at "There are two ways government can create the monetary base..."

...which then gives two paths that need to be cut off entirely. Problem solved.

It makes no difference to me whether the Fed LENDS inflationary, thin-air, savings robbing, fiat currency into existence, or Congress assumes direct control over that unlimited and wonderfully delicious invisible tax counterfeiting machine, whereby Treasury SPENDS inflationary, thin-air, savings robbing, fiat currency into existence without interest. I would smack both down as the utterly false choices they are, and choose none of the above.

For me there is no "Duh, gee, who would I trust more with a counterfeiting machine--the Fed, or Congress? That's like asking me to choose who's going to have control over a meth lab: a junkie or a dealer?

First and foremost, I want to reduce the power and scope of CONGRESS. And part of that would be to NUKE the monopoly counterfeiting machine altogether, making deliberate currency debasement on anyone's part (public or private) a criminal act.

No, deciding who should have power over a currency debauchery machine isn't even a question for me.

 

[furface]

In Keynesian economics, the problem isn't the ability to print money. It's the ability to dispose of it. You start handing money out for free, it tends to accumulate in the wrong places. There are lots of different theories on the impact of ever increasing cash in the hands of a few wealthy entities. My view is that they tend to do stupid things with it. For instance the subprime crisis can be viewed as stupid people with too much money giving it to banks like Goldman Sachs to manage and screwing up the economy.

There's an underlying principle in economics which is that people who know how to create value should be the ones who control the value that they created. When money is being channeled to people who didn't create value, you have a lot of stupid money around doing really stupid things. Welcome to the modern world.

 

[Steven Douglas]

In Keynesian economics, the problem isn't the ability to print money. It's the ability to dispose of it. You start handing money out for free...

You lost me at "In Keynesian economics, the problem isn't..."

Keynes himself knew that there was a problem with the ability to print money. It's the post-Keynesians, or Keynesian-spawned who came after, who make the leaps you're referring to so loosely as "Keynesian economics".

And "...handing out money for free..." begs the question of what money is in the first place. It conveniently ignores where the value of ALL counterfeited 'money' comes from. Nature abhors a vacuum, and reality economics doesn't get a free pass. Ever. Not even the magical Keynesian-spawned can outclever that one.

You can print currency out of a vacuum, but there's a yin to that yang at all times, as the value of that currency comes from everything that was sucked into that vacuum.

And the problem is not with "the ability to dispose of it". It is the fact that it can dilute the value of any other like kind currency in existence at any point along the way. That makes ONE problem the chosen channels to which all that freshly counterfeited currency is infused into the market.

There's an underlying principle in economics which is that people who know how to create value should be the ones who control the value that they created.

See the word "should"? That's normative (should/ought), and has nothing whatsoever (at least in theory) to do with economics, or economic principles. Once you use the word SHOULD or OUGHT you are firmly in the realm of morality and politics, NOT economics. So as long as we're in a normative/political/value judgment/should/ought mode, and not confusing that with "a principle of economics", here's mine: Thin-air fiat currency SHOULD NEVER be created. Period. Those who do create such currency DO NOT create the value that comes from it. That value is CONFISCATED directly and ultimately from ALL individual currency holders, without their permission, and most times without their knowledge. The ONLY way to "fairly" debase the currency, and not hurt the currency holders, is to make sure that it's distributed evenly to all, in proportion to their current holdings -- which would make it tantamount to a stock split. Print twice as much currency, everyone has double the quantity at half the value in a zero sum game. Anything else is THEFT. Redistribution of wealth through SELECTIVE channels.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Judge Napolitano Weighs in on the Trillion Dollar Coin Proposal: ‘It Would Be Economically Catastrophic’

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/0...oposal-it-would-be-economically-catastrophic/

 

[furface]

Steven, all I'm saying is that a fundamental problem with an aggressive monetary policy is the amplification & accumulation of money. It's a factual numerical problem that is also an observed empirical fact. If you print money and have no way to recycle it, it's going to indefinitely increase in volume & accumulate. This is a numerical, mathematical fact.

My assertion that it's THE underlying problem with Keynesian economics is a slightly different issue, but the fact that accumulation & amplification of money is a numerical problem still stands.