Tag Archives: $60 T coin

Good Luck Stopping Austerity With Incremental Platinum Coin Seigniorage!

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Devin Smith | 144 comments

Some have responded to the recent boomlet for using Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) as a solution to the debt ceiling problem, by reacting to the ridicule visited upon PCS advocates by know-nothings like Heidi Moore of the Guardian and Matt O’Brien of the Atlantic, by proposing “smaller ball” PCS than the clearly inadequate Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) itself. This post will focus on J. D. Alt’s interesting post which makes five points about the TDC debate as it was addressed on a recent Chris Hayes show.

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144 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $60 T coin, austerity, Fiscal Policy, HVPCS, incrementalism, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

The Great Austerity Swindle!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Devin Smith | 21 comments

By Joe Firestone

Our Congresspeople, corporate CEOs, tea partiers, most economists, Pete Peterson’s minions, and even our President, tell us that we’re running out of money; and that if we can’t keep running huge deficits, and increasing our national debt forever, because eventually, our creditors will just cease lending us our dollars back.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #mintthehvpcs, $60 T coin, austerity, Fiscal Policy, grand bargain, great betrayal, HVPCS, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

Ezra Klein Chooses Fear Mongering the Big Coin, I Choose Ending Austerity!

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Devin Smith | 29 comments

By Joe Firestone
(H/t to Lambert Strether for the title!)

Here’s a commentary on Ezra Klein’s recent diatribe against Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS).

But there’s nothing benign about the platinum coin. It is a breakdown in the American system of governance, a symbol that we have become a banana republic. And perhaps we have. But the platinum coin is not the first cousin of cleanly raising the debt ceiling. It is the first cousin of defaulting on our debts. As with true default, it proves to the financial markets that we can no longer be trusted to manage our economic affairs predictably and rationally. It’s evidence that American politics has transitioned from dysfunctional to broken and that all manner of once-ludicrous outcomes have muscled their way into the realm of possibility. As with default, it will mean our borrowing costs rise and financial markets gradually lose trust in our system, though perhaps not with the disruptive panic that default would bring.

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29 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, #TDC, $60 T coin, austerity, beowulf, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, Ezra Klein, Fiscal Policy, game-changing PCS, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, Philip Diehl, platinum coin seigniorage, small ball PCS, Trillion Dollar Coin

Wake Up Progressives: the Trillion Dollar Coin Can Be Game-Changing!

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Devin Smith | 35 comments

By Joe Firestone

Well, not really. But if you view the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) meme, as I do, as a short-hand for the more general idea of using Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS), then yes, it can change the whole political game for progressives if President Obama dares to use it.

Literal TDC proposals would solve the debt-ceiling, but they won’t solve the larger problem of defeating the austerity politics that is so close to getting the cuts to social safety net and important discretionary government programs that austerians have long sought. PCS game-changer proposals are the ones calling for, or analyzing the impact of, PCS options aimed at paying off the national debt and covering anticipated federal deficit spending for some years. Continue reading →

35 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, #TDC, $60 T coin, austerity, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, fiscal cliff, Fiscal Policy, game-changing PCS, krugman, Linkins, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, O'Brien, platinum coin seigniorage, small ball PCS, Trillion Dollar Coin, Wiesenthal

The President’s Leverage: He Can Go Platinum

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Devin Smith | 40 comments

By Joe Firestone

Well, that’s over. The President had a chance to go “over the cliff,” bargain hard with the Republicans, get more of what he said he wanted at the price of perhaps some more days of crisis with extreme pressure building on the Republican caucus, and he blinked. I don’t much care that he blinked on tax rates for the top 2% and on inheritance taxes, because tax rate increases for purposes of deficit reduction simply aren’t needed for getting deficit spending needed to create jobs, as the rest of this post will show. Here’s what I care about: Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $60 T coin, congress, debt ceiling, debt limit, deficit, deficit spending, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, national debt, platinum coin seigniorage

Beyond the MSM: the New Wave of Brief Blog Posts on Platinum Coin Seigniorage

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Devin Smith | 8 comments

By Joe Firestone

Introduction

MSM bloggers and cable hosts weren’t alone in creating the new wave of posts and video segments on Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) at the beginning of December. The blogosphere also produced brief posts from a number of bloggers, as well as a few more substantial ones. I’ll review the brief ones in this post, and the more substantial ones in future posts, but won’t include my own recent posts on PCS during December.

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8 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, $60 T coin, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, fiscal cliff, Fiscal Policy, hyperinflation, inflation, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

Platinum Coin Seigniorage, Issuing Debt, Keystroking Deficit Spending, and Inflation

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Devin Smith | 17 comments

By Joe Firestone

The most frequent objections to proposals that we use Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) to create reserves for debt repayment and deficit spending, frequently come back to inflation. Perhaps people can’t get over the association they learned in high school Social Studies, or perhaps in American History, or Economics 101, that when Governments create money and then just spend it without any compensating deflationary action, inflation or hyperinflation happens. Maybe they can’t forget those cartoons about people in Weimar Republic days pushing wheelbarrows full of money to the market to buy some bread. So, I’ve been promising for about a week now, to blog about the likely expected relationship between the different PCS options and inflation using the framework laid out by Scott Fullwiler!

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17 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, $60 T coin, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, fiscal cliff, Fiscal Policy, hyperinflation, inflation, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

New MSM Trillion Dollar Coin Wave: Here’s The Big Story

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Devin Smith | 37 comments

By Joe Firestone

The one thing that jumps out at you when reading the mainstream posts of the past week-and-a-half bringing Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) into the forefront of attention again, for the first time since last year’s debt ceiling crisis, is that every mainstream blogger or commentator is telling a story about minting a Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC), or a few trillion dollar coins as an option the President can either use or not to get around the debt ceiling. But no one is telling us the much bigger story of the enormously increased authority to cause the creation of fiat money, delegated to the Executive Branch by the Congress in the 1996 legislation enabling PCS. And no one is telling us what the possible implications of this change are for our political and economic systems. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, #TDC, $60 T coin, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, fiscal cliff, Fiscal Policy, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal Sustainability, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

New MSM Trillion Dollar Coin Wave Misses the Big Story: Bradford and Plumer

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Devin Smith | 4 comments

By Joe Firestone

In my last three posts, I’ve critiqued the new wave of mainstream posts and commentary on Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) on my way to making the case that the MSM are missing “the big story” about PCS. These include posts by Pethokoukis, Wiesenthal, Carney, Drum, Yglesias, Yglesias, and an MSNBC cable segment by Chris Hayes. All of these have looked at PCS in terms of the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) and its possible impact on the impending debt ceiling shakedown. None have viewed it from a broader point of view. Let’s now look at commentaries by Harry Bradford, and Brad Plumer. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, #TDC, $60 T coin, Bradford, debt ceiling, debt-subject-to-the-limit, fiscal cliff, Fiscal Policy, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal Sustainability, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Plumer, Trillion Dollar Coin

New MSM Trillion Dollar Coin Wave Misses the Big Story: Drum and Yglesias

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Devin Smith | 29 comments

By Joe Firestone

In my last two posts I’ve been reviewing the new wave of mainstream posts and commentary on Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) by way of providing background for making the case that the MSM are missing “the big story” about PCS. Thus far I’ve reviewed recent posts by Pethokoukis, Wiesenthal, and Carney, and an MSNBC cable segment by Chris Hayes. All four have looked at PCS in terms of the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) and its possible impact on the impending debt ceiling shakedown. None have viewed it from a broader point of view. Let’s now look at the commentaries by Kevin Drum and two from Matthew Yglesias here and here. Continue reading →