Treasury, Fed Kill Trollin' Dollar Coin
And just like that the most surreal two weeks of sheer monetary idiocy is over, with the Treasury and the Fed both formally announcing the death of the trillion trollin' dollar platinum coin idea, which was nothing but a cheap charlatan trick devised by page view-desperate media outlets to dumb down their already confused audience and distract from the fact that the US is, sadly, once again on the verge of bankruptcy.
As the WaPo reports:
The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.
That’s the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today. “Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” he said.
This is good news: at least the US monetary system will not devolve into an all out circus and parlor trick. For the time being at least. Because it is and always will be far easier to create empty, repoable "money" out of fungible electronic 1s and 0s, than an actual piece of metal.
It is even better news because one can now permanently filter out and ignore all destructive "opinions" originating from those vocal proponents of this monetary gimmick, some of whom even have awards not ironically named for the inventor of dynamite.
We won't even touch on what you need to know for the click-through and CPM loss this means for Series ZZ preferred round investors in slideshow-centric electronic media outlets located at the intersection of gossip and financial cluelessness.
Finally, and on a more serious note, this once again means that it will be once again up to the market to get the political left and right to come to a compromise, as was the case in the summer of 2011.
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Its not like you can just create things out of thin air.
Like from fractional reserve lending - which the Fed admitted is how most of our money is created?
I think it would have been a great idea to mint this trillion dollar coin.
It would have been a shining example of a hopless policy.
Later, when all this crap has blown sky high, it would have been a good idea to place that coin in the White House and put it into law that all future presidents start each working day by polishing that platinum until it lights up the office.
In the old norse Sagas Odin had a gold ring called Draupnir, this was something Loki got from Black elves and gave to Odin. That ring had magical powers so that every 9th day eight identical rings fell of it.
It sound a bit like the back bone of modern banking, the fractional reserve system.
Thats really all it is, just a few thousand year old Black elves magic, its amazing until you see trough it, then its just crap, like that coin idea.
Ah Shucks, I was kind of looking forward to owning a few of them trillion dollah platinum coins. Would have paid for them with Zimbabwe Bux.
Black elve magic it is.
And collect interest on it.
compound interest
Krugman.....The pied piper of morons. So many of these dolts were actually dead serious about the hairbrained bullshit. To make it that much more baffling, they claimed moral and intellectual highground from which to spout this idiocy (and a graet cover of MMT voodoo of course).
All they've got left now is 'stopping climate change'.........
You can say that again.
Krugman.....The pied piper of morons. So many of these dolts were actually dead serious about the hairbrained bullshit. To make it that much more baffling, they claimed moral and intellectual highground from which to spout this idiocy (and a graet cover of MMT voodoo of course).
All they've got left now is 'stopping climate change'.........
Krugman.....The pied piper of morons. So many of these dolts were actually dead serious about the hairbrained bullshit. To make it that much more baffling, they claimed moral and intellectual highground from which to spout this idiocy (and a great cover of MMT voodoo of course).
All they've got left now is 'stopping climate change'.........
+1 For sayin it again
Perhaps they can back it with good intentions, and unicorn shit?
I wonder why ZH has been so adamantly against this coin idea. Yes, it represents a default under our current monetary system. But our current monetary system is simply a scam against the people: privately created money (for free) loaned back to the sovereign at interest and with the collateral of your productive labor. Our current monetary system is one big parlor trick.
Default is and will be the only option. Austerity under the current system is a gift to the bankers.
I suspect that if you read the fine print you'll find that when the Fed buys debt from the Treasury, it's secured by the underlying assets of the country. So I wouldn't get too excited about that default option - more likely they'll just lay claim to the underlying collateral.
I doubt that is in the fine print, but if a default did occur I think that Congress would immediately revoke the Federal Reserve Act and, as the Act provides, seize and liquidate all assets of the Federal Reserve. I think that is a far better idea when we reach the point of a functional rather than technical default, which this country has done in the past. The government defaulted on its obligations when FDR confiscated and stopped domestic gold exchange for the dollar, there was another default when silver was removed from circulation and then again when Nixon "closed the gold window" for the payment of foreign debts. All of those examples were defaults, all were handled with slight-of-hand tricks; I have no doubt that the next wave of defaults will be handled in a similar fashion unless the government decides that it is far less dangerous simply to inflate the debt away by repaying it in massively devalued currency.
That won't happen until gun confiscation happens first.
Not for any other reason but many people are hyper-sensitive to what the federal government is doing.
There won't be a technical default. The Fed can and will print any amount of money necessary until the printing press is rendered worthless. Then the problem becomes the government being unable to borrow and a massive restructuring of the economy is forced.
Half right...
The printing press is still worth something.
What it prints will be worth paper scrap.
Yes it's magic, take two things that have intrinsic value - paper and ink - combine them into something worthless: a FRN.
The USG can always borrow, because the FRB can always lend. That used to be a laughable contingency. Today it is the dominant recurring fact.
Unless used in slogans, USG and FRB should not be treated as two separate entities.
That's what I told my finance professor in my MBA school about 5 years ago and he laughed. Now who's the fool?
This is a nice idea, but it assumes that the govt would act against the Fed in the interest of the people. Can you provide some other examples of where they've done this?
Can't provide American examples...but world history is replete with them.
Its in the fine print.
Its more tricky than that though.
Its like playing chess with four people.
Its not that they are trying to actually default to the end.
They just need the leverage up to take the next steps.
Corporate law dicatates specific things in relation to corporations and by-laws.
The plot is kinda large.
Wish I could explain more.
But I think you can do your own research if you wanna know.
Its never the hand you think is going to be dealt.
And never trust that all parties at the table aren't in on the game.
As some of them always are.
They just need the leverage up to take the next steps.
yup. very interesting comment, thanks.
Borrowing to pay interest is another type of technical default.
Govt is worried about avoiding cash flow default now.
Not much to worry about long as Fed keeps printing and buying govt debt, which they can do forever.
USD collapse is the growing danger now.
I'd rather see the Fed try to collect on the 'full faith and credit' of the government than have the banks collect on the real assets of the people.
Dp.
double penetration is a bitch
I can see what you mean. Any attempt at austerity or trying to reign in the deficits only serves to make this banana republic of ours last just a little bit longer. It does seem that the sooner we reset it, the greater the chance of us coming out alive on the other side.
Yes. And austerity will lead to defaults, which is when bankers collect their collateral.
While the Thomas Jefferson quote is not attributable to him, first by inflation then be deflation is how the bankers will end up with all of the real assets.
They might own the pieces of paper, but let's see them try to repo 100 million cars and houses.
Nothing personal and you do make a valid point in so far as the nature of our bankster/political slimeball enablers regarding the so called monetary system. My guess is that ZH enjoyed making such a mockery of the 'trillion dollar' coin farce because so many absent minded dolts actually latched onto it as being a viable new charade with which to continue playing political hot potato. The so called 'leader' preznit yo-momma and the other bankster puppets who rule strictly for the sake of power and similar narcissistic/sociopathic delights, will of course continue on by other more usual means. The fun in mocking this lunacy might be derived merely from astonishment at what utter morons Americans at large have become as well as perhaps some degree of twisted admiration for those in the leftist intelligentsia who shamelessly promote such obscenely perverse propaganda to the moronic masses of useful idiots content to cheer it on as so long as 'their' side appears to be winning the game.
I also suggest that true austerity would not at all be a gift to the banksters. True austerity would end both major political parties. True austerity would also end communism progressivism. For this reason it will not take place while Lincoln obama continues to serve as the joke in front of the curtain.
Easy to see why TY is so vocal on the coin. It was shilled at 1000 decibels by the assclowns at Business Insider, which is nipping at the heels of ZH in the click department.
If you add up all the GDP effects of the various fiscal events pending, and the probable effects of those about to execute (but not yet pending), the drag is 3+%.
Should all this happen, GDP will not remain positive this year.
This is deflation. Outright, pure, unquestioned deflation. When you do not grow an economy, but population does, the share for each shrinks -- and that's deflation.
About all they can do is delay the upcoming cuts. As was done in Aug 2011, they delayed them past the 2012 election year, but of course, that's not what they face now. They dare not delay them in to 2014 because that's the congressional elections. Odds politically are to do it now (though do not think of this in terms of "getting it over with", because these cuts are 10 yrs long. These drag numbers are applied each year for 10 years.)
That is very long term deflation.
CrashisOptimistic When you do not grow an economy, but population does, the share for each shrinks -- and that's deflation.
Sorry what? Increase the population -> shift out the demand curve. Goods become relatively scarcer...driving UP their nominal and real prices.
Deflation is a lowering of the general price level.
Something rather unlikely with a government addicted to money creation to fuel its spending.
BTW the economics prize is not an official Nobel Prize; it's a prize (begun in 1968) given by a bank 'in memory of' Alfred Nobel.
Betcha 100% of the Paltinum coin's melt value that Krugman never ever mentioned that to anybody, anytime, anyplace.
It's right there on http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ for anyone to read, although (a) hardly anyone will read it nor take note of the difference, and (b) it appears the Nobel committee has no problem with downplaying the distinction. As to the family of Alfred Nobel, I've read they weren't too pleased at the addition of 'economic sciences' to the lineup.
Seems lately the Prizes won by these bozos were more likely from Alfred E. Neuman than Alfred Nobel.
...and economics prize named after an arms manufacturer, makes even less sense thann a "Peas" Prize
You misspelt "piece."
Indian giving killjoys
Now what's Paul Krugman gonna say?
Will he shove a 4 lb cabbage up has rectum as an amends to mankind?
Will he simply apologize?
Has he enough Humility?
Will he write a scathing broadside about Timmah and Lew-lu's past relationship?
Drama at the NYT
Earth shattering events in the Capitol.
Quick, everybody, into the carpool lanes!
He's so clever, He should just jump out of his basement appartment...
I thought he still lived with his mom?
No, she turned into his renter and is now living on borrowed time.
"Indian giving?" Who invented that term? Custer?
so we won't be depositing plutonium at the Fed?
what a disappointment.