It would appear that even the venerable Art Cashin had to rub his eyes in incredulity at the recircling of the idea of the Treasury minting a "Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin" to solve the debt-ceiling 'problem'. His brief discussion on the idea is summed up perfectly in his final six words "anybody got an ebook on alchemy?"

Via Art Cashin: The Mayans Weren't The Only Ones With Strange Ideas

With a debt ceiling battle about to resume, a rather bizarre idea from last year's debate has resurfaced. It appeared on a couple of blogs and concerned the minting of a "trillion dollar platinum coin". Under section K of Federal law, the Treasury Secretary appears to have carte blanche on the design and issuance of platinum coins. The Treasury normally writes checks against the taxes it collects. When the tax receipts run out, they borrow money (bonds) to write checks against. That borrowing can run up into the debt ceiling, resulting in the looming confrontation. The thesis claims that Geithner should authorize the coin, deposit it at the New York Fed and write checks against it, rather than selling more bonds. Anybody got an eBook on alchemy?





Only those who have no clue about the money creation process in a fractional reserve economy could be vacuous enough to suggest that an idiotic "fix" such as this has any hope of working. All the proposal does, in effect, is suggest a devaluation of the currency relative to an absolute precious metal asset, which in itself is nothing new, and most recently was conducted, with great "success" by FDR in the 1930s.