Amid an ongoing debate over raising the debt ceiling and Congress’ seeming inability to rein in wild deficit spending, some proponents of even bigger government proposed the minting of a $1-trillion platinum coin to get around stubborn lawmakers seeking budget cuts. Seriously. Originally, the Obama administration refused to rule it out when asked by reporters, leaving analysts to speculate about whether or not they would really do it.
Then, suddenly, the privately owned Federal Reserve put its foot down and killed the scheme. In a joint statement issued with the U.S. Treasury, the central banking cartel, which holds a virtual monopoly on currency production, said no way. The Fed would not accept such a coin even if the federal government were to mint it. While never mentioned in the mainstream media, the implications of the whole episode are enormous.
The idea of a trillion-dollar coin, of course, has been widely ridiculed and criticized, with analysts saying it sounded like something a certain Zimbabwean despot who flooded his country with $100-trillion Zimbabwe notes might try. Other commentators slammed the proposal as an unprecedented power grab by an out-of-control executive branch that needs to be urgently restrained — sooner rather than later — before it does any further damage to the nation and its government’s remaining credibility.
Even segments of the establishment media mocked the scheme. “In a town that specializes in stupid ideas, this one reached a new level of stupid,” wrote Washington Post opinion writer Marc Thiessen. “Think about it: If the president could really create a trillion dollars out of the ether simply by minting a single $1 trillion coin, why would we stop at one? We could mint 17 of these puppies and eliminate the national debt! Heck, we could mint 18 and have a trillion-dollar surplus!”
Then the scheme died. With a brief statement issued over the weekend, the Fed and the Treasury instantly quashed the hopes of some Democrat lawmakers and Keynesian “economists” such as Paul Krugman that Obama would actually mint the coin. “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,” said Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley.
Read More at thenewamerican.com . By Alex Newman.
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