can we get this proposal to Al Franken somehow?
Beautiful design. The only problem I can see with this is that platinum is really expensive, and you wouldn't want people saying that the Treasury was throwing money at the problem, given the level of debt already. Aluminium would do just as well. Or copper. There's a precedent for copper coinage.
3: the problem there is that the law specifically only covers platinum coins. However, the $2 trillion coin could be really, really small.
I like the idea of putting Reagan on it. Reminds me of the debased US currency in "Snow Crash".
I found this so brilliant I tried to link it on fb (yes, I'm That Guy), but it turns out unfogged is extraordinarily uncooperative about this. Perhaps it's for the best.
Unsurprisingly, google image search turns up a ridiculous number of options for Ronald Reagan coins.
5: if someone puts the image on flickr you could link to that...
Very good. Maybe a small little 'd' as a mint mark. Somebody told me the d coins were rarer.
7: It is on flickr, here, but it may not be publicly linkable.
Brilliant. Although I kind of think it should say "TWO TRILLION DOLLARS" in words (is the '$' sign on any of our currency?)
re: 10
I can't read the word 'trillion' without hearing it in Mike Myers 'Dr Evil' voice.
Although I kind of think it should say "TWO TRILLION DOLLARS" in words (is the '$' sign on any of our currency?)
This is correct. Our coinage statutes inexplicably specify that coins should be imprinted with the denomination in words rather than numbers, leaving foreign visitors to try to puzzle out whether the little coin that says "one dime" is worth more or less than "five cents" or "one quarter dollar".
10: (is the '$' sign on any of our currency?)
Yeah, the denomination is the part I am most unsure on. TWO TRILLION might be better. But the '$' does appear on at least some versions of the $100 platinum coin. And it was my daughter who actually did the final work on the reverse side starting from Katherine's design--I merely used my powers of persuasion to compel her to contribute her discretionary effort.
TR would totally have done this. BHO won't.
Can't you just link to the image file, or does that not work on Zuckerbook?
31 USC 5112(d)(1) (from your link in the OP:
United States coins shall have the inscription "In God We Trust". The obverse side of each coin shall have the inscription "Liberty". The reverse side of each coin shall have the inscriptions "United States of America" and "E Pluribus Unum" and a designation of the value of the coin.
18: Great, now its too late to redesign and we have to default. Fucking lawyers.
18: but, according to k,
"The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary's discretion, may prescribe from time to time. "
And I think that supersedes the restrictions in d (1), just as it does the restrictions in a. But IANAL.
21: Yay, ajay saved the world economy!
I think we ought to put the standard inscriptions on there, just to be safe. I agree that (k) might arguably override that portion of (d)(1), but do we really want to risk it?
there's plenty of room around the edges, but making the text wrap around in mspaint is too annoying for me. I nominate JP Stormcrow's daughter.
there's plenty of room around the edges, but making the text wrap around in mspaint is too annoying for me. I nominate JP Stormcrow's daughter.
Yay, ajay saved the world economy!
And Minivet's trousers. I'm on a roll here.
24: Oh, I wasn't necessarily suggesting a change be made to the draft design on the front page here. I was just giving the treasury some advice, in case they're reading. I didn't want them to adopt our model wholesale, without modifications. But they probably have graphic designers who could do that make that sort of change easily. Maybe even with some program better than mspaint.
Fucking lawyers.
HOW DO THEY WORK?!
The intent of this law was for the Treasury to make chintzy coins to sell to collectors or something, right? If so, I suspect there may be arcane reasons the citation isn't as useful as we think - like maybe the law making currency legal tender for all debts doesn't apply to it.
29: I don't know in detail, and what you say is possible, but my guess from the statutes I've read is that there isn't anything arcane in the statutes preventing the tactic. Legislatures are sloppy animals, and drafting laws that say exactly and only what you mean them to is hard (as in, for example, the debt limit law).
What's going to keep it from happening is that it's ridiculous, not that it's illegal, but I think if Obama were willing to embrace the ridiculous, he could do this.
Having just read the Balkinization post linked, I agree that it would make Obama one of the biggest laughingstocks in history - enough to make him one-term even if the economy roars back tomorrow. He ought to be able to ignore that if it really prevents financial apocalypse, but face it, he probably won't.
Also as far as I've been able to tell, Obama is about as unconventional as a Spokane real estate agent. (His response to a question about legalizing cannabis for revenue purposes was "lol stoners.")
Well, if he doesn't, I still want one of these, like a challenge coin, or one of the Dumbledore's Army ones in the 5th Harry Potter book.
20.2: And I think that supersedes the restrictions in d (1)
The existing $100 platinum coin I linked in 15 does not strictly adhere to those standards ("E Pluribus Unum" is on the obverse rather than the reverse side) so I think we're golden .9995 platinum.
31: Oh, I think if it worked people would get over the silliness instantly. The political repercussions would be for the highhanded exercise of power Congress had only accidentally given him, not for the ridiculousness.
Apparently the Isle of Man was a pioneer in platinum coinage.
34: A majority of the public doesn't even believe this is a serious problem! Add that to media transmission of Republican talking points, and I think you get calls of "funny money" and "I wish I could make myself a trillion-buck coin" from even the most politically disengaged.
36: The fallout is less than from 20% unemployment, though.
In fact, it would pretty expansionary, and would probably lower unemployment. You could defend it as policy on the merits, even without the debt ceiling fight.
You guys are worrying too much about how small to make the $2 trillion platinum coin, when you should be worrying about how large you could make it. Surely someone with better arbitrage skills than me could figure out a way to make a super-gigantic platinum coin that would tie up a significant amount of the world's platinum reserves and create an artificial scarcity that could be exploited to make somebody a lot of money.
("E Pluribus Unum" is on the obverse rather than the reverse side)
HOW CAN YOU TELL
Maybe everything else is on the wrong side.
39: Yes! A huge coin! Also important: make sure you can print out an image of the coin and, by folding it just so, reveal the Most Important Thing: Nic Cage sucks.
but I think if Obama were willing to embrace the ridiculous, he could do this.
Modern Republican alchemy has transmuted the ridiculous into standard operating procedure. It's a shame the Dems don't have the mojo to pull off something like this.
40, 41: Maybe I have retroactive access to Wikipedia information other than the linked image.
Damn it, Stanley, I was going to make a National Treasure joke.
A very efficient idea: it solves the debt ceiling crisis and provides the plot of the next National Treasure movie at a single stroke.
37: What, no triskelion?
Saw a bunch of those flags on a couple of the Tour de France stages. Also, there seems to have been this Pan-Celtic flag (Brittany, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Isle of Man (Manx), and Cornwall).
47: Sean Bean hasn't died yet* so there must be more.
*Is that correct? He just gets hauled off at the end of the first (or it is implied that he will get hauled off)?
50: I was joking, but Jerry Bruckheimer confirms they're already making the next one.
the obverse rather than the reverse side
The inverse, the obverse, the converse, the reverse, the sharpening wing of the edge of a sparrow. For suitable reckonings too numerous to mention, as the queen is fat she is devoured by rats. There is one way to skin a cat or poison a rat it is heretofore here to three forthrightly stated.
Only an injection of $100 billion dollars for the first payment - $507 billion dollars if we want to lock up August so that we can enjoy the summer.
Definitely no inflationary effects.
That design lacks the clarity of the message I proposed, but it is nice looking. So long as it isn't a montage design.
54: Shit, we forgot the "- OPINIONATED CHARLTON HESTON".
I've always said we should put Reagan on the penny, then abolish the penny. This is better, though.
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Raw pâté sablée for breakfast may have some downsides, but at the moment I sure can't think of any.
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I like the $100 platinum coin linked in 33. Can I get those from my bank? Are stores required to accept them?
58: I assume they are legal tender. However,
The US Mint announced a maximum authorized mintage of 8,000 coins and an ordering limit of five per household. The coins were priced at $1,792 each based on the average price of platinum for the prior week plus a mark up. After only one week of availability, the coins sold out their entire mintage of 8,000.[2009 version - DAS]So I'm sure your savvy storekeeper would welcome them being used in that fashion.
Am I reading 59 correctly that the price of the actual platinum in the coins is vastly higher than the face value of the coins themselves? That seems stupid. If that's the case, why aren't these $10,000 coins? Doesn't the US Mint understand seigniorage?
One would have thought they'd learned their lesson with the copper penny.
60; This is why they are really just commemorative collector's items. But with the 2 TRILLION DOLLAR version the seigniorage is the whole point.
It should be the size of that coin in the Batcave. (Is that coin still in the Batcave, anyone who's read a Batman comic in the last fifteen or so years?)
