United States Debt Default

Further evidence that this isn't just something goofy I've made up:

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Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?

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Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there's a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

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Ironically, there's no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

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That's Jack Balkin, a professor of Constitutional Law at Yale. http://www.cnn.com/.../07/28/balkin.obama.options/index.html

Yes, or there may not be. And even if there is, who would have legal standing to bring the suit? The Federal Reserve isn't being asked to accept anything and their cooperation is not required. They're irrelevant to the "Jumbo Coin" stratagem. Coinage is money as soon as it is issued by the Treasury, because it's an obligation of the Treasury, not the Fed.The Fed, as I've explained, has absolutely nothing to do with this. If the Federal Reserve Bank won't accept cash, another bank will. But CS couldn't explain the circumstances under which American banks would boycott the Federal government, and you haven't been able to explain anything at all.

On what basis? How will they demonstrate harm or that the Treasury's actions are illegal, given the authority granted to the Treasury by 31.5112(k) and 31.5103? You'll have to do better than just assert that the Board of Governors has any standing in this matter. Why would they? It's Treasury business that doesn't involve them. You must have arrived at this conclusion based on your years teaching constitutional law at Yale.Oh, no, wait! That's not you, that's Jack Balkin, who thinks there's no known legal impediment to the "Jumbo Coins" strategem. You, on the other hand, seem to know absolutely nothing. You couldn't even tell the difference between coins and bills.

Just enough to be totally wrong, it seems. Well, that explains your complete ignorance of the actual terms of the Federal Reserve Act. And what about unallotment power? What about the power of the purse? Your idiot scheme - the Treasury opting not to pay some bills - involves the Executive Branch unilaterally seizing authority beyond that granted to it by Congress. If the Treasury is allowed to unallot funding in this context, it'll be the pretense for unallotting funding in the future. Republican president doesn't like abortion? Goodbye funding, Planned Parenthood, regardless of how Congress votes - the new TresSec just won't cut you the check.But that doesn't seem to bother you, even though that's way more important - a much more significant shift in the traditional balance of authority and power - than the Treasury printing money. You know, like it always has. The "present need of the economy", according to economists, is to have about 3 trillion more dollars than it has. That's the shortfall in aggregate demand vs trend, and about double how much cash actually evaporated during the collapse of the housing market in 2008. So, all indications are, we could use a major expansion in the money supply right now. Inflation is less than 3%, it's perverse to worry more about inflation than the government not being able to pay its bills.But I wouldn't expect an MA to understand any of that. Congress has never intended to place these rights exclusively with the Federal Reserve Board who is, at any rate, an agency of the Executive Branch. So there's hardly a "usurpation" of power, here - merely the Executive Branch executing its Constitutional authority over the printing of money.But your harebrained notion that the Executive Branch can just decide not to pay people, while considerable more popular, really is a usurpation of the power of Congress's budgetary authority with profound implications for the country going forward. And if you weren't out of your mind with a personal vendetta against me, you'd be able to see that. "Jumbo coins" really is the best option for the nation. I hope somebody on the President's staff is working on it; based on Boehner's failed attempt to pass a bill last night, I'm a lot less optimistic that this situation will be resolved in time.

Because the Federal Reserve Board is supposed to handle this. Did you know that two positions on it are unfilled? That's right, one of the most important monetary organizations in the country is understaffed, because Republicans have been blocking all of the President's nominees.Funny, isn't it? How they've deliberately neutered the organization that could normally see us through this recession with Keynesian measures? And now they've engineered this debt crisis to boot? Who cares? More specifically why would a bank care if the Treasury does an end-run around the Fed just this once to save the country? You're still not explaining the circumstances by which a complete bank boycott of the Federal government is engineered.

Well, there's a lot of laws so it's easy to not be aware that the Treasury can do this. I mean, look at AZPaul. And even if they knew that they could do this over at the Treasury, maybe they felt that it abrogated Congress's intent to do so.And what was the need to do it? The debt ceiling/Federal Reserve Bank system was working just fine until literally two months ago when this one-of-a-kind hostage crisis started.I don't find it very significant that it was never done before, because the need to have done it was never present until now. The Federal Reserve Bank isn't the mafia.

The expertise of political scientists and economists at Harvard and Yale was insufficient, somehow?

Jon, lately I've been sensing a bit of a sea change in your political views.Is that something you would like to comment on?

Here's the text of Congresswoman Rashida Talib's "Automatic BOOST to Communities Act": No webpage found at provided URL: https://tlaib.house.gov/sites/tlaib.house.gov/files/Automatic%20Boost%20to%20Communities%20Act%20.pdfHope you're all doing OK with regards to COVID-19, I know the readership here skews a little to the older side. Take it seriously, stay in, and wash your hands. Evolution is real and this time it's gunning for you.

It does take a particular brand of species-centrism to think I was talking about the evolution of humans.

Good to know you remain as insensitive to new evidence as ever.