Brodsky's Thompsonesque Trip Into The World Of Monetary Idiots Vs Krugman's Barbarians

Submitted by Paul Brodsky of QBAMCO, Speaking of monetary abstractionism, there has been recent talk of a fiscal gimmick called “The Trillion Dollar Coin,” in which a platinum coin valued at $1 trillion would be created by the U.S. Mint for the Treasury Department. Treasury would then rid itself of its pesky fiscal deficit in one fell swoop by simply keeping the coin on deposit at the Fed. The TDC idea is a marvel of political imagination and public ignorance (and so it seems to have legs!). As with most clever illusions, the TDC is based on sound logical footing, one in fact we have argued in favor of: asset monetization. But there is a fundamental difference separating the Fed monetizing Treasury’s gold to devalue the dollar, followed by a re-pegging of dollars to gold at the higher fixed exchange rate (our idea), and assigning an arbitrary value to an asset no one else is allowe...