Print 1 Trillion Dollar coins to pay off the National debt?

You bet ya! This is actually something being seriously considered. Now you can't just pay down the $16 trillion dollar national debt with any old stroke of the pen or some other form of mystical voodo. No way! It takes a special magic platinum coin to do the trick right and make it legal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/0 ... 42073.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/201 ... or-insane/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... ould-work/

Why not just make it out of brass?

franco b wrote:Why not just make it out of brass?

Because the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Russians, etc... holding onto our debt obligations would smell a rat if we handed them trillion dollar brass coins to settle the score and bring payment closure. But give them a silver dollar sized official platinum coin with $1 trillion printed upon it and they know hands down that they are getting the real thing. Any fool knows that!!!

lsayre wrote:

franco b wrote:Why not just make it out of brass?

Because the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Russians, etc... holding onto our debt obligations would smell a rat if we handed them trillion dollar brass coins. But give them a silver dollar sized official platinum coin with $1 trillion printed upon it and they know they are getting the real thing. Any fool knows that!!!

But with brass you could make it really really big.

franco b wrote:But with brass you could make it really really big.

Well, maybe!

Did you know that Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman thinks $1 trillion coins are a great idea. It takes really big minds to contemplate this stuff. President Obama's Cabinet, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve are loaded with minds of this caliber.

Sounds like a bang up idea.

Actually more like a crack up boom but who cares?

I'm just exhibiting more "victom" behavior.

jpete wrote:Sounds like a bang up idea.

Actually more like a crack up boom but who cares?

I'm just exhibiting more "victom" behavior.

When Zimbabwe printed trillion dollar notes the world laughed. But our military might will assure that those dupes (err, foreign countries) dumb enough (err, smart enough) to buy up all of our national debt will accept the $1 trillion platinum coins they are handed at face value and do it with a smile.

lsayre wrote:

jpete wrote:Sounds like a bang up idea.

Actually more like a crack up boom but who cares?

I'm just exhibiting more "victom" behavior.

When Zimbabwe printed trillion dollar notes the world laughed. But our military might will assure that those dupes (err, foreign countries) dumb enough (err, smart enough) to buy up all of our national debt will accept the $1 trillion platinum coins they are handed at face value and do it with a smile.

Usually if I mention Zimbabwe as an example of hyperinflation, I get laughed out of the room.

But here is a Nobel Prize winning economist saying we should do it and everyone cheers.

But, I won't go on lest I be thought to be belly aching...

jpete wrote:But, I won't go on lest I be thought to be belly aching...

Good. Because if guys like you would just shut up maybe I could get to be a millionaire.

franco b wrote:Good. Because if guys like you would just shut up maybe I could get to be a millionaire.

Is one of the new trillion dollar coins coming your way?

lsayre wrote:

franco b wrote:Good. Because if guys like you would just shut up maybe I could get to be a millionaire.

Is one of the new trillion dollar coins coming your way?

Just waiting for the 100,000 minimum wage.

Sounds like that old Howard Stern bit "Who Wants to be a Turkish Millionaire?"

So how much of America is collateral for each coin?

Yeah good point Flyer.

I'm about halfway through Glenn Beck's recent book "Agenda 21". It's a fictional story of post-meltdown America when Agenda 21 becomes fully implemented. People's sole purpose for existence is generating power via treadmills & reproducing for the "Republic". Animals, rain, and earth are protected by law - the fine for harming any is death. Private property is illegal - everyone lives in what amounts to a concentration camp, with colors designated to clothing according to your specific "job" in society.

With the ideas coming out of our dear leaders lately this scenario doesn't sound that far fetched anymore ...

To put the Trillion Dollar coin hoax (err, reality?) into perspective, if it was minted with honest value it (per Forbes) "would weigh more than 43 million pounds and occupy roughly 32,000 cubic foot (assuming about $1,600 a troy ounce of platinum)".

This begs the question: Where will a bankrupt government come up with the funds to purchase 43 million pounds of platinum in the world market? And since the worlds platinum supplies are extremely limited, as soon as they began buying it to mint such a coin the worlds platinum spot price would go up 10 to 100 fold or perhaps more (making the coin become that much larger), and catalytic converters would exceed the value of the very cars and trucks they reside in (making purchasing vehicles by us average Joe's a bit tougher task).

Should we all consider purchasing platinum before it "necessarily skyrockets"?