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Stephen Colbert Takes On The Trillion Dollar Coin
We were wondering how long until the latest lunatic idea out of the "serious economist" mainstream would get the proper comedic treatment it so rightfully deserves. That time finally came last night when Stephen Colbert gave it the 3 minutes of attention it almost deserves. Oh well, now that it has made the comic circuit it is time to officially forget about this idiotic idea... At least until the next debt ceiling crisis in a year or so when like a bad sequel to Weekend at Bennie's Bernie's, it is resurrected once more.
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http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hjres5/text
Maybe they can look at the term limits on presidents?
Or term limits for Krugman, his 15 minutes are way over...
FORWARD SOVIET!
I would point out to Stephen Colbert that one ounce of PT is more than we have backing our system now.
Your turn funny man.
http://youtu.be/7GSXbgfKFWg?t=26s - it's as good as money... it's an IOU... might want to hold onto that one.
If the Fed Reserve can just print money and Obama can just make a coin... why the FUCK does anyone need to pay taxes?
http://www.infowars.com/if-obama-can-just-create-a-trillion-dollar-coin-...
you have to admit the charmin bear thing was fuck'n funny...
C.H.A.N.G.E - Come Help A Nigga Get Elected.
Obama - Just another black man asking for change!
I thought the rule on what President can be on a coin is ONLY dead Presidents..........
but rules????
When you're making a $1T coin all the other rules are insignificant.
That rule doesn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle...
If $ trillion coins are going to start circulating, I'm gonna have to check my change more carefully.
Well, yeah. But it doesn't say president of what. Wasn't Caligula president of the Senate, or something? Or Kuthulu (no idea of spelling) president of something? The underworld, maybe? Dunno, but the guy above is right. No problem.
Hey. I was once president of the homeowners' association. All you gotta do is ...
Wait. What am I saying?
He's not "just another black man." He's a one night fuck whose parentage is still questionable.
Colbert is another Obama/Mugabe apologist. F him and the magic coin.
How many thousands of pounds is that? Make it 2 coins, like Now & Later. And this is considered rational and sane? That weasel face is onboard lets everybody know its time for the train to Crazy Town.
FORWARD SOVIET!
I would love a term limit on Krugman! And Ezra Klein. And the idiot WaPo blogger that first broke the trillion dollar coin story!
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/pennies-40-ton-trilli...
If you are in Canada.
http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport
Thank-you for the link.
Video is not available in your area = zerohedge link
which is about as legit as those seccession petitions
Maybe not legit.......but fun though.
Lighten up Francis.
Lee Harvey, you are a madman. When you stole that cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow. I want to party with you, cowboy. But the two of us together? Forget it! I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I'm gonna volunteer my leadership to this platoon. An army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. And Sergeant Hulka isn't always gonna be there to be that big toe for us. I think that we owe a big round of applause to our newest, bestest buddy, and big toe... Sergeant Hulka.
Pardon me sir, but if we kill all the golfers....they'll lock us up and throw away the key.
C'mon, it's Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick 'em up, we zip right out again. We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia. It's like going into Wisconsin.
macrodynamo @macrodynamo
Let's make a lead coin too while we're at it. That one can be worth a gazillion dollars.
Can we source the lead near Fukushima? That will reduce that chances that someone tries to steal it.
Let's just use platinum coins with fancy writing stamped on them to fund the whole government. Why stop at one? Then no one should have to pay any taxes evar again!!
They should just put up vending machines at the local grocery store using bronze coins. I don't think bronze coin value is mandated by the govt either. You go in and deposit $5 fiat currency into the machine and it scribes onto the bronze coin your monthly mortgage payment, car payment and tax payment. You then deposit this at your local TBTF Bank and all if paid up for the month. Brilliant!!!!!! Why didn't I think of this?
to hell with the trillion dollar coin, lets just call "GOLD MEMBER" to bail us out of this mess!
Is it minted with Homer Simpson's likeness?
It's got a big picture of a screw on the front of it.
Almost need a group shot with a gathering of people who made it possible, around Charles Ponzi and JM Keyenes with a backdrop of Jekyll Island? All tastefully done of course.
"ALL HAIL INANIMATE CARBON ROD!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfTgxrxL9ug
Nah ,Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff.
Shows just how desperate they are getting.
Seems like the Fat Lady is warming up in the wings.
I'm in favor of doing it just so everybody would shut the fuck up about it.
BTW, I'm pretty sure if Ben Bernanke did mint the coin, he'd use it to buy Cheese Nips.
a trillion dollar coin makes more sense than letting the bankers extract usury from taxpayers
only if they still didn't "extract usury from the taxpayers" afterwards which is why it still makes NO sense. You catching on yet or do you consider inflation to not be a form of usury?
To clarify, I once thought the platinum coin viable when it surfaced last year, but have decided otherwise. Yes, Debt Free Money would be superior to debt based money, except for the problem of confidence in the monetary system that THIS form neglects. The platinum coin debt payoff is not a solution if used by iteself. In order to be viable, it needs a second part that reinstates the confidence it destroys, either through force (government somehow forces people to continue to accept the US dollar as payment and keep others from dumping the US dollar en masse) or through virtue (such as a precious metal backed note or circulating specie). However, currency reform itself is still only part of the probelm as our banking and government sector has not been reformed and lacks the discipline and accountability a PM based currency requires. Which option do you think they will choose, force or virtue?
Sovereign money in the form of platinum fiat is viable if the issued currency is related to real economic expansion. For example, to issue fiat to service existing debt ONLY would amount to about 2% of GDP, so would not be inflationary if there was at least a 2% annual growth in GDP - as long as the Fed took that currency expansion into account when setting its policies.
However, the trillion-dollar coin is just a way to continue spending beyond our means. Still, printing fiat and spending it into the economy, never to be extracted, is no more inflationary than borrowing money off the Fed's press, spending that into the economy, never to be paid off, only rolled over infinitely.
At least the trillion dollar coin has a limit to its inflationary effect. The trillion-dollar debt incurred by borrowing will also require further borrowing to convert interest into principal each time that debt is rolled over, resulting in still more inflation.
double post
I've got some Zimbab $100 Trillion bills on the wall in my office. Timmah boy, I'll sell them to you for only US $10 Trillion each. Deal?
If Obama Can Just Create A Trillion Dollar Coin, Then Why Do We Have To Pay Taxes?
http://investmentwatchblog.com/what-happen-if-u-s-treasury-can-just-crea...
"hence the problem." this coin thing STILL doesn't solve the problem of "solving a debt problem with more debt." in fact the coin thing would only make it worse. Vexing indeed when one must "pay for these things." from whence the GOVERNMENT revenue since with a Bailout Regime Corporate taxes will only go down not up. Payroll taxes are a good start...that actually goes to pay a benefit. So does a fully funded Obama Care. Cutting spending is the wrong answer however since that will clearly cause a second recession. Hence "sound budgets" that put the USA on a path towards "fiscal sanity" are a must have. Hmm. Haven't had one of those in a while.'
Just revalue platinum to $1,000,000,000,000 an ounce. Problem solved. Ohhhh, where's Dr. Evil and Mini Me when you need them.. One Trillion Dollars!
More taxes than you could ever imagine, my friend, just not the kind paid on a tax return.
It's still currency debasement, just in it's most raw and naked form. No need to worry about issuing Treasury bonds and then having the Fed buy (many but not all) of them back with printed dollars. You just go straight to outright printing of dollars. A trillion of them, which would NOT just sit there- they would hit the money supply over the course of about 10 months as the government spent them to cover their spending deficit.
So f-ing what, we're pretty much doing that already, right?
Here's the difference, as I see it:
In theory the Fed could reverse course and start selling off it's balance sheet to rein things in if inflation gets too hot. Forget whether they will or not, just realize that the capacity exists. With the coin there is no way to pull that money back- ever. It drops straight to diluting the value of every other dollar in circulation with no "reverse" gear if you start a nasty inflationary spiral.
AND... it WOULD likely start a nasty inflationary spiral because $1T only covers about 10 months of a single year of deficit spending. Great trick, but what do you do in month 11? Mint more trillion dollar coins, of course!
Also, such foolishness would (rightly) be perceived by the world as the USA going all "Zimbabwe" on our own currency. You think confidence is low now, do this dumb idea and you'll see what real lack of confidence looks like.
The United States Note (the Lincoln Greenback) is the longest running currency of our land, printed directly from the Treasury with no debt or interest attached.
"In theory the Fed could reverse course and start selling off it's balance sheet to rein things in if inflation gets too hot."
Sure....in theory. But we live in reality. In reality, you have to have buyers in order to sell.
If Obama Can Just Create A Trillion Dollar Coin, Then Why Do We Have To Pay Taxes?
C_O_N_ T_R_O_L
1. Sovereign debt is an odious concept. Sovereign countries do not have to borrow from private corporations (who create money for free) - at interest and with the collateral of your productive labor.
2. The odious debt should be defaulted on.
3. A platinum coin is a form of default.
4. Ergo, this is a great idea. Default!
I don't get why this idea receives such vitrol at ZH. It should fit nicely with the anti-Fed beliefs of many readers.
That is the logical conclusion of this conversation. We have come to an agreement in purpose that default and linking the currency to a precious metal is the solution. Now it comes down to the degree of the currency devaluation and the metal to back the currency with..
Again "we have a bailout regime" hence "there is no odius debt that cannot be re created" even if paid off. This is why bailouts sound good to the laypeople of Wall Street...but in fact are bad. "the only thing you are funding is Government." and with no hope of ever "de-funding" it. The irony that the least popular (the banks) do best in this environment should be lost on no one...least of all the Government itself which is "only financing debt instead of Givernment services." I'm sure if Jack Lew is nominated as Treasury Secretaryp he'll have all sorts of solutions for his problem.
I think it irks most (myself included) is that they are putting a value on it.
And that chicanery is the only way it works.
Stamp a certified assay and weight and be done with it. That is how it was supposed to work.
Like a dollar. The dollar (coinage act) was specified in terms of wt and purity.
The problem is a fiat "value" declared versus a market value.
Declared value just changes my master from the FED to the Treasury. I want no master.
pods
Not to put words into your mouth, but it sounds like you would be more in favor of a freegold than a gold standard.
I want the abolition of all legal tender laws, the issuance of the United States Note, and a system of freegold/silver/barter, etc. running along side the US Note. Let the people decide their medium of Exchange and the value thereto.
The more free the market, the better. I am also for removing the fractional reserve privilege of banks, or removing the FDIC so a bank's moral hazard must be faced.
The current monetary system is so beneficial for the banks I don't think I could devise a better and more hidden one (in plain sight).
I think I am so jaded that I could not trust a US Note ATM. I could not trust the amount in circulation, etc.
But our credit based, exponential expansion model has got to die a wicked, horrible death. That way people will wake the hell up about what is going on.
People will naturally work out a system that will be beneficial to them. If we can just keep the sociopaths at bay.
pods
Agreed.
You don't have to do away with the FDIC, just make the bankers own wealth first in line, like Switzerland. It greatly increases the "give a shit" factor, as Kyle Bass says.
you dont have to get complicated.. just murder usury when found
Why, that's akin to anarchy! How will the corp. track and tax every penny you make and spend?
I agree, let the govt cut the private federal reserve bank out of the equation. I'm surprised that this has gotten so much press, since this is a threat to them and they own the msm.
The (ironically attractive) aspect of the $1 trillion coin idea is it demonstrates the utter lack of intrinsic value of FRN's and the whim by which government could devalue.
The real question is when you use it at McDonalds or WalMart will they be able to give you change?
By the time hyperinflation kicks in I think that the real question will be whether it'll be enough!
It'll always be enough as long as it's made of pure platinum.
Waiting for a business to put up a sign:
Nothing over a $20 bill accepted. This includes $1,000,000,000,000 coins.
At least he realized the value toilet paper has in this situation...and in our near future. Got TP?
That's pretty damn funny.I say we mint a 16 trillion dollar coin with a big naked ass on the front of it , and tell the rest of the world to kiss it.
Best idea I've heard yet !
And we'll just watch those Treasuries and US dollars come hurtling homeward.
Just the fact that we're even discussing this in the first place shows how desperate we are.
Why a big naked ass? Couldn't we just put Obama or Bernanke on it? Same thing, right?
Make a $20 Trillion dole r coin.
Problem solved
How about they just devalue all the currency. A $100 bill is now worth a dollar, etc... Why do we have to go through all this inflationary debt monitization crap? Just declare that everything is worth 1% of what it used to be.
Or, better yet, just tell the FED that we won't be paying them back. Really, it's their fault that they made bad loans.
Which is exactly the plan if TPTB nanage to keep control of the rapidly deteriating situation.
That or War,They appear to be planning on both.
i think its a great idea -
our creditors - the Chinese Govt - are stupid and will accept the coins as payment.
but why platinum? why not magic beans? or paper money?
I think Krugman and Weisenthal are betting on a collectors' market later on; honestly i might buy in with Texan scrip, Gold yuan etc if the design is good enough.
Wooden nickes, platinum coins. Debt monetization is debt monetization.
Off topic, but worth a new one...
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_07/01/2013_477142
Greek coalition will likely not survive 2013
Yes, it is a lunatic idea. But I am not going to let Tom Keane of Bloomberg radio, the Keynesian with the voice of a constipated lesbian, off the hook. He said he idea was, "so stupid that Ron Paul's likeness should be on the head of the coin."
Fukk you Keane, and fukk you bloomberg shills!
can i bring it down to Kroger's and buy a loaf of bread with it? Can they make change or will I need to bring two trillion dollar coins with me? So long America. It was nice knowing you. Time to break it up. Break the coasts off to form the Western Socialist States and the Eastern Socialist States... include the Socialist Great Lake States with it. Then group the middle states together to form Texas and the Conservative Farm States.
Or lets just trade all the liberals/marxists for illegal immigrants - deport the libs/marxists to cuba - 2 problems solved.
What ever happened to the gold & silver coins required by law? Oh ya, nobody gives a rats ass about law anymore - stoopid me.
sounds like Mugabe
Minting a $1,000,000,000,000.00 coin of platinum would be runinous to the environment given the mining damage and the need for more coins in this denomination. Just mint one $1,000,000,000,000,000.00 coin and make us fiscally responsible for a few more decades.
As if printing more money has made us fiscally responsible now? Beney just needs a few more good men to suck the rest of us dry.
Maybe they can print an automatic debt clock on each one, at least they would then have value.
The biggest reason it will never be done - It would cut Wall Street out of the profit loop on all the new funny money being created.
Simple Bankruptcy is still an option. I find it odd that everyone still skirts this issue. "Just go out of business." understanding of course that "every pet project in DC must still be heard." I mean the simple question of "what can actually be funded here" must be answered lest all that be created is a debt regime. /:-0
You could make the coin or you could just default, it's the same thing. Why bother with the coin
Theater
Why does it have to be made of platinum? Just mint coins out of feces, with the Bernank's image on it, stamped at a billion USD each, declare it legal tender, and use it to pay off all of the U.S.'s creditors. Problem solved! What can go wrong?
I think it would good to consider a plan to issue a X-trillion dollars in an instrument with a current value of par that accrue interest at a fixed rate until maturity 100 years from now. They could be issued to pay off the current debt using a retroactive collective action clause of some sort. By the time the payments are due the world may be so different that they may not be significant. They could be made attractive by making them exempt from Federal estate taxes or something similar.
The problem, as I see it is, the effect it could have on the current politcal and trade relationships between the US and China, and Japan.
Mint The Coin & Enrage The Banks - A Dangerous Game http://chartistfriendfrompittsburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/mint-coin-enrag...
Look, this isn't about what works, but how far they can convince the American people to bend over and take the "extend and pretend" "solutions"... many of you might be laughing at the trillion dollar coin idea, but you ain't seen nutin yet - desperate men do desperate things. The trillion dollar coin idea is just the tip of the iceberg... buckle up cuz lots more fun "gubmint solutions" are coming your way.
The last one (QE) simply gave wall street bankers more $$ to gamble with in the derivative markets... it's been "hypothecated" away. I wanna take the trillion dollar coin, put it on red or black and spin the roulette wheel - I wonder if I won if they'd hand me over their casinos in lieu of cash?
I used to ask myself, "how stupid do they think we are?"... man was that naive.
The trillion dollar plantinum coin seigniorage idea has fully saturated the media and even has its own Wikipedia page, yet no one has mentioned that the originator of the concept of accrual of the seigniorage, from everything I can see, originated with George Soros.
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=14702
Yes, it's ludicrous, but
THE REAL SYSTEM IS EVEN MORE LUDICROUS
The Fed has printed 2 trillion-dollar coins in the recent past. Those haven't helped the debt at all, and those are just the trillions the unaudited entity admits to.
"From now on, people looking for helpful hints on renovating a $4 million Manhattan townhouse won't have to waste time sifting through articles on the crisis of public education," Times executive editor Bill Keller said of the new section, which will be printed in smudge-proof ink so it doesn't soil the soft, pink hands of its readers.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-york-times-moves-all-content-you-wo...
am i really the only one who thinks Colbert's brand of humor is formulaic and predictable?
That's the basis of his popularity.
If he was unpredicatable, he would scare the average TV zombie.
Him and Jon Stewart must have some semblance of an idea of what is going on, and yet, they only go about 50% of the way, any time they criticize the gov't, Wall Street, The Fed, etc. They JOKE about the issues, but don't straight faced tell you how absurd it is, and honestly, what the solution is.
I get it, back in the day the court jester was the only one who could speak his mind, and criticize the king, albeit indirectly, and through the use of humor, but there comes a time where we need a bit more from our 'jesters', at the very least to prove to us they aren't on the take, and are part of the good guys.
I have given Colbert and Stewart all the chances in the world, they have yet to impress.
They like their jobs and they know where the line is. And it's the unemployment line if they stray too far from the official line.
Ask Bill Maher. Ask the Smothers Brothers.
It's not censorship, it's just a business decision. Nothing personal, sorry we have to let you go. You can pick up your personal possessions from the dumpster out back.
Hmmm ... the bosses are moving in the right direction.
Forget coins, the Treasury needs to make a supreme Ring of Power:
Obama could put it on and disappear ...
Leaving aside that this would seem to be pretty much a joke. It might be displaying some friction btween admin and fed. Basically the fed has threaten to pull the pucnchbowl right. Which was only a hypothetical punchbowl anyway right. So this is a hypothetical response to a hypothetical threat to hypothetically discontinue a virtual fed policy right. I suspect that in fact that this is an effort to silience the truth by creating a senario so ludicrous that words will escape Tyler and he will suffer severe disorientation - a news drone targeted at Tyler.
But it is also a match of wits Tyler vs the algos to which can resolve this recurve loop of stupidity - I recall most compilers were limited to about 7 levels of recursion but that was long ago.
Tylers poppin the crazy pills I hope.
Like the debt ceiling itself is not more ridiculous than a trillion dollar coin!
The trillion dollar coin is no more ridiculous than the Far Right nuts holding the government hostage. It's good to know there is an option out there to keep the government running. I don't know why I check the headlines on Zerohedge, everything has been wrong since the financial crisis first hit. I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day. What was gold going to go up to? $5,000? Good luck with that. This is not much more than an outlet for nutjob survivalists and gun freaks.
So why are you here? A better question is why are we at 16.4 trillion debt and rising where we have to consider the thought of a trillion dollar coin that may "keep the government running". You are the problem. Your complicity in this madness is the reason these horrific ideas are coming up. We should definitely supplant the economic well being of the country so your fucking daily trades can keep going. The great depression had the same type of market moves from 1929 to 1933. I honestly hope you are right, but ZH has been quite prescient in it's coverage. You are fully clueless and part of the problem. The rest of the world will dump our credit worthiness for the trash heap of history if you get your wish. Do you endlessly run your credit cards to financial ruin in your household? Probably not. The country cannot continue to run this way. Go back to marketwatch and yahoo finance where you can talk about trading ideas in a "volatile market". Our reckoning is coming. It is a mathematical certainty and this coin idea proves it. People like you will get raped when it happens and it is the people ahead of the curve who will thrive.
The trillion dollar coin, or 'Trilly' would put a slug in the belly of the beast. And the other 16 that logically must also be minted would polish the beast off.
It is time to kill the beast now with this exercise in stupdity, while we still have a few resources and enough tattered citizen confidence left to rebuild a functional economy.
We can create money by minting and printing, but we can't create wealth. Wealth takes actual labor and resources. Without real wealth, the ever expanding pool funny money will eventually collapse under the weight of its own fraud.
I don't see why the coin shouldn't be cupronickel. making it out of platinum might confuse the sheep
It's because of the way the law about minting coins is written. The value of coins must be approved by Congress, except the platinum coin. It wasn't meant to be used in the way the current proposal is being made though, it was supposed to be about specifically the coins the US Mint sells for "commeratives", like tee gold and silver Eagles. I'm not up on the whole story here, just the generalities of it.
I haven't watched MSM in a long time, but it's more apparent how much they profit off of the diarrhea of political bullshit and whitehouse tint-- wonder how many people actually live by the MSM...
Setup the crazy so nothing seems sane-- that's how Bush did it, that's how Obama does and you know what? It's fooled America so far.
A Trillion Dollar Coin - now that would be great for a Bar Mitzvah....
Spot price right now is $1,579 so it would only take 633,312,223 ounces or 39,582,014 pounds or 19,791 tons. No biggie. Now realistically it would be a platinum coated slug worth maybe a few bucks but why bother stopping with one trillion? Go for it and make it $16.4 trillion. Mint a new one every year to cover the deficit or maybe even the entire budget. That way you can use taxpayer money for important things like studying the mating habits of desert turtles or giving out birth control to confesed sexaholics.
The stupid, it burns.
$1T should 'em through to October, '13.
Why not just have a coin made out of block of concrete and stamp 1 trillion on it.
I hope you realize that Colbert is a parody of the Right
Colbert's hillarious.
I still think they should mint one, just for fun. I'd love to see the look on Uncle Bennie's face when Obama goes to the Fed Bank and makes the deposit.
Why have a coin with a bald eagle and a bald black man ....when you can have......
a I Trillion "White man with hair Max Keizer flipping the bird" coin
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It should be depleted uranium at least.