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MORE ON THAT TRILLION-DOLLAR COIN
Here's some more background on that crazy "trillion dollar coin" idea floated back in 2012/2013.
-Editor
President Barack Obama almost minted the coin. On "Pod Save America," a podcast from new media start-up Crooked Media featuring former Obama staffers and speechwriters, Obama was asked what the "scariest moment" of his presidency was. "I think it was the moment when it seemed that [former Republican House Speaker] John Boehner didn't seem to generate the votes to make sure the US didn't default on our debt," said Obama. "We had to start drafting a speech." In the midst of the possibility of a government shutdown, Obama said that the administration was considering any number of ways to avoid the shutdown and deal with the national debt. One of the ideas floated, according to Obama, was having the US Treasury mint a coin worth $1 trillion to pay off a good portion of the debt. "We were having these conversations with Jack Lew and others about what options in fact were available, because it had never happened before," said Obama. "There were all kinds of wacky ideas about how potentially you could have this massive coin." Obama's idea of the coin may be a bit different from what others discussed at the time. As Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal (who we should note was fascinated by the idea while at Business Insider) noted on Twitter, you in theory could just mint any size of coin and declare it worth $1 trillion. Obama, however, said he imagined it much larger. "It was some primitive... it was out of the Stone Age," Obama told the hosts. "I pictured rolling in some coin."
Um, yeah... It would have looked great next to the Yap Stone money at the National Numismatic Collection. Former Mint Director Ed Moy slapped everyone back to reality with his January 8, 2013 CNBC article, The $1 Trillion Platinum Coin Ain't Worth a Plugged Nickel. QUICK QUIZ: Who can tell us what a Plugged Nickel is? Oh, yeah - Dan Carr made this great satirical piece in 2013 (sorry, they're sold out). -Editor
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