Daily Archives: January 14, 2013

The Political Economy of the Coin and the Debt Ceiling

By Matthew Berg

A fateful Saturday in January

On Saturday afternoon, the White House ruled out using platinum coin seignorage as a way to defuse the political crisis caused by Congressional Republicans’ unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling. In the words of press secretary Jay Carney:

“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default.”

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The Most Embarrassing Financial Column of 2013

By William K. Black

We are only two weeks in to 2013 and there is plenty of time for far more embarrassing financial columns to be written, but The Guardian’s financial editor, Heidi Moore, has opened up an early lead in the competition.  Moore’s column represents five embarrassing elements.  She entitled her piece:  “’Mint the coin’: why the platinum coin campaign doesn’t even work as satire.”

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