At least we can get back debating… well, anything else.
One option is coin seigniorage—aka, the “really-huge-coin workaround.” The United States has a statutory limit on the amount of paper money in circulation, but no such limit on coins. The Treasury secretary has the authority to mint certain coins of any denomination, with no need for the value of the metal to equal the value of the coin. (It gets a bit technical.) But the idea is that Secretary Timothy Geithner could order the Mint to make a, say, $5 trillion coin. It could then use the coin to buy back and extinguish debt from the Fed, pushing the country back under the ceiling. Or it could deposit it, and the Fed could counteract the inflation by selling government debt.
So they are using magic to fix the problem?
I know you screw everything else up, but please don’t lose the bloody coin.
Not magic. This would be trickery and deceit. What do you expect from a group of people with lower moral values than a whore.
they will fix this. Both sides dont want the so called doomsday to hit and the people notice nothing happens except a de facto balanced budget.
After Tues the govt will simply have to furlough and eliminate non essential jobs and depts, life will go on the debt will be paid and our credit will be more secure than ever because the govt will be forced to live on what it takes in period.
i see the administration has cozied up to big banks top honchos.
the way to solve this crisi is to cut the budget of congressional reps… lower their wages to minimum wage, they’s have to donate all their investments and saving to charity, move into public housing and their kids will have to go to public schools, and colleges, or the military for the “education”.
lay that on them, and you’ll see how fast the make things right..
The Bugle’s, John Oliver has one of the funniest and possibly most accurate takes on this subject. Recommended. http://thebuglepodcast.com/
Ya know..
Until they understand that 2 things are fostered with this, and they ARNT GOOD..it wont help.
ULTRA high paying jobs (that do little)
Corruption..
Paying off Groups because they LOST something, and you have to REPLACE whats missing..AND NOT find the HOLE it fell thru, ISNT RIGHT.
How many of us, suffer in our own lives from SMALL things, and have to PAY OUT FOR IT, from our OWN POCKET. they dont. ITS OUR POCKET.
Understand a few things here…
After the Vietnam war, we started PAYING companies/corps to HOLD onto goods, and make them READY when needed. During that TIME, we paid them..(rental fee’s, to HOLD THEM)..
we had 1 war, and then we did the SAME THING..
What happened to all those goods, from the First wars in 1992(?)..tanks, and Protective clothing.. STUFF they should have been ready..and werent.. The soldiers DIDNT take them home.
Then lets talk about a FEW in the gov. that make TONS of money..in jobs NOT ELECTED.
HOW about all the savings from ALL THE CUTS from the past….Lower paid jobs, that really dont count…as the Agency gets the same amount of money..
lol..
All this is, is more meaningless chatter to fill the blathering mouths of the payrolled MSM with..
Basically, print more worthless money.. only now it would be in the form of a semi-worthless metal which no doubt, would be issued with interest stuck to it since we are “not allowed to issue interest free currency (or debt)” anymore.
(-as one of the very few things *our government* was once constitutionally designed to do.) *ahem*
Knowing these areshats, they’d have to import the metal from china (because china owns us and they refuse to accept our worthless T-Bills anymore..)
Obviously they wouldn’t issue 14th amendment debt, because the current administration would have to do so without more of their precious taxes written into law to help payoff the thieves running The Fed with. (and themselves)
In the end, it doesn’t matter much, especially since this about national debt.. (not really foreign held debt)
They will either raise the limit, or default, -then raise the limit with most likely the *cough* -popular draconian austerity measures the poor folks in the EU have been suckered into accepting.
The really funny thing is that we would prolly not even be having this “discussion” yet if the current administration and our spineless congress did not give in to [b]Lucifer Clinton’s[/b] pointless health care plan.
(we need to institute a chastity belt for elected officials that prevents them from having huge, fat gobs of money being stuffed into their aresholes. -don’t ya think?
Funny.. This is the epitomy of the “problem-reaction-solution” formula the mind numbed masses have been falling for what, about a century now?
They created the problem, -produced the classic “chicken little sky is falling” reaction, -and now we are all eagerly awaiting the wonderful “solution” -which no doubt, was already scripted a few years ago.
very sad..
-s
Franking privileges (the ability to create legal tender,) is also a function of the post office.
Instead of dollar bills, we could use stamps as legal tender.
Instead of actual dollars we already use debt instruments of equivalent value so instead of actual stamps we’d use debt instruments of equivalent value.
Since money in fungible, we could do it without requiring a big enveloppe to send somewhere really far, like Postcards From The Edge or, like the song by Bubble, requiring us to spend “Christmas Here On Mars“.
It would be a promissory note that we would be sending an enveloppe of some huge weight at some future date.
—-
In #3, SteveS said: What do you expect from a group of people with lower moral values than a whore.
You do a poor but honest whore a grave diservice by comparing her morals to those of a politician.
Al least, with a whore you know you’re getting screwed and how much its costing you. With a politician you feel like they’re all fucking with you and when the bill comes due, its always astro-fuckin-nomical.
Just saw a report showing Obama saying “if there are any earmarks in the debt ceiling raising bill, I will veto it.” //// Seems odd, until you remember the TARP and Stimulus were both more pork and tax cuts than stimulus/jobs.
With EVERY bill considered so far actually continuing the increasing debt reality for the USA, I’m actually listening to GROVER say that you have to have no new taxes in order to get the politicians to lower expenses.
Amusing.
I said “listen” not agree with. Reality is a harsh task master. Having to change my opinions as facts come to light and are understood.
Norquist is too dogmatic. Closing loopholes no matter what makes the tax code easier and by that definition more fair and easier to cut in the future. Silly to make a good idea dogmatic and hence part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Spending in deficit is unfair/doesn’t work. Wealth disparity to the rich is unfair/doesn’t work. Too bad our politicians can’t follow more than one idea at a time.
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE.
John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry have already discussed the threat of the African Gold Dinar and how it lead to the demise of Qaddafi.
Here is a nice summary of the issue:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RvL_Dm2d99A&feature=player_embedded
Here’s an off the wall crazy idea. How about grownup planning and management? In Canada we did it in 1994: evaluated programs and spending for effectiveness, put medium term policy planning in place, telegraphed the plan to everyone and then stuck with it with biannual reporting.
Canada went from the most indebted to least indebted of the (then) G7 nations in 10 years. Oh and we put in place common sense governance for the banks with yearly peer review from other countries.
On the second thought, that is crazy. Stick with 5 trillion dollar coins.
Didn’t they do something like this on the Simpsons? Mr. Burns stole the bill?
Yes. A better solution to the usual corruption and and filthy dealings in Washington DC.
Make a damn five trillion dollar coin. Great idea.
I am sick and tired of hearing about the “debt ceiling”. It is disgusting how Washington focuses on one issue, and goes on about it endlessly. We all know the fix is in, and magically, on April 1st, we will have an agreement among thieves.
I am sick of them. I am not even going to bother voting any more. It is truly disgusting.
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cBTaHvkD1SY&feature=related
The article said that Tim-Bo should direct the mint to make the coin. Problem is, the Constitution says that only Congress has the right to coin money, not the Sec Treas.
The value of money is directly linked to productivity. Printing more money just inflates the dollar. Creating more productivity deflates the dollar. Printing money is a hidden tax that makes our savings worth less and is a terrible idea.
The thing about the 14th Amendment solution is the wording of the amendment: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” If O’Bama raised the debt ceiling unilaterally, then the increased debt would not be “authorized by law.” Now, I’m no Professor of Constitutional Law like our glorious leader but that phrase sort of sticks in my head.
As to the $5 tril coin? Are coins legal tender? You frequently hear of people paying fines or bills with sacks of pennies and that money being refused. Anyway, it’s silly. A mint run of one coin? The numismatic value of such a coin would be incalculable. Probably not $5t, though.
No, you’d have to have a pressing of a smaller face value coin, say, $10 billion. Then Timmy could take a wheelbarrow full of $10b coins into the Fed as payment.
They’d probably make him roll them…
Animby–you’ve been bamboozled by the lying Pukes again. as in…AGAIN!!
Raising the debt ceiling does not create any debt, legal/by law/or not/ or otherwise.
The debt ceiling is just a post facto confirming acknowledgement to pay a VALID DEBT THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN AGREED TO.
Its NOT PAYING the existing debt that the 14th Amendment makes unconstitutional.
I had to laugh yesterday when McConnel was saying that it was “standard procedure to issue legislation out of the Senate on a 60 vote basis.” What a lying sack of shit he is. Being less than51% of the Senate, the Pukes now want to make the filibuster the standard procedure. Its not. Just like having to affirm the debt of the USA is not constitutional.
Words have meaning, and in context, everything a Puke says is a lie. Its why Washington can’t govern anymore. They think being bribed is a form of free speech and they think criminal skimming and ponzi schemes is free market capitalism.
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE.
What a loony idea. The dems are getting mighty desperate in their constant obsession to spend other people’s money.
According to the article: “The idea originated in the lefty blogosphere; FireDogLake wrote about this “escape hatch” or “subway tunnel”.”
Ah, but the coin would only be worth $5 trillion if it was MS-70 and slabbed.
(A little bone for all you numismatists out there!)
To fix the debt and the budget and the tax/revenue system in America we only need to do one thing. pass the Public Finance Election Bill which would remove all private money from the election, re-election and lobbing process. Each candidate from each tier of (federal, state & local) government election receives a fixed amount for campaigning. any money not used is returned.
Oh and no public sector job selling or buying anything from the government or it’s agencies for 10 years following or previous to running for or serving in government.
The bonus …… by the end of the second election cycle we would also get Democracy back!!
So let me get this right. Instead of actually doing the right thing and actually fixing our runaway spending problem, you would rather print more money?
Yeah, that always works out well.
It’s time for Operation Clean Sweep. If your congressperson wasn’t part of the solution, next time, get out the vote broom.
“What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves – pronto – we’ll just be bogus too! Get it? “
““really-huge-coin workaround.”” “Righteous bucks! “
There is only solution to this problem at this point. Pass a bil that mandates it will not come up again before the next election. Everything else is BS and up for sale.
# 19 bobbo, words have a meaning and a context said, “Raising the debt ceiling does not create any debt, legal/by law/or not/ or otherwise.”
Yes, Bobbo. Words do have meaning. In our much-vaunted political circles, raising the debt ceiling means selling bonds and thus increasing the debt. It’s not really cause and effect and the words aren’t synonyms. It’s not even NewSpeak. It’s GovSpeak.
If you honestly believe approving a higher debt will not lead to a higher debt then I may lose all hope in your salvation.
This reminds me of a campaign of Dungeons & Dragons I played over 20 years ago where we tried to steal a 1M gold piece coin. We found the coin itself did not contain 1M GP worth of gold, and neither did the treasury vault of the city state that issued it. Even the base metal the coin was made from wasn’t worth being sold as scrap to the local blacksmiths. I think all we took away from that campaign was a bunch of experience points.
Explain that last part, selling government debt?
How’s that different from borrowing?
By the way not extending the debt ceiling doesn’t mean default on debt. It means the government then has to choose what bills to pay and what payments to make in what amount.
There Will Be Default, er Blood. Actually both. We will default one way or the other, this will piss off our creditors. There will be a really big depression and there’s one sure fire way to get out of a depression- War. You can cleanse all your sins through war.
All currency, whether coins, paper, electrons, gold, silver are fiat. They are a symbols for barter. Instead of carrying around a sheep, we carry around a representation of the value of sheep. Only food, shelter, tools and labor have intrinsic value (stuff). All we are doing is conveniently representing our labor in money whether gold, silver, or paper.
There is, weirdly, a lot of truth in Adam Curry’s statement that we’re all worth $9m when we’re born. That’s the present value of the average human being’s labor over a lifetime. It’s not what you’re paid, it’s what the goods and services you make are worth.