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There has been consideration that the US Mint would produce a trillion dollar platinum coin to pay down the deficit. This would be a single coin. The idea is serious; see link.
Never in the history of the world has there been a target for robbers so huge. I envision a fictional work (please let
this craziness stay fiction!) in which supervillians, rogue states, rouge states, rouged and mascaraed barbarian hordes, master spy ninjas, Confederate pirate cyborgs and all manner of evildoers converge on the mint with one goal: Steal the Trillion Dollar Coin. The work would depict excess in all forms except problem solving. One would think that at least a few of the various villains would cooperate given the size of the trophy, but that never winds up happening.
No trillion dollar coins!
http://www.washingt...llion-dollar-coins/
But what about a gogozillion dollar coin! The God Coin! Worth ALL! [bungston, Jan 07 2013]
ZGoogol$
pocket money to add to coin [xenzag, Jan 07 2013]
Simpsons episode "The Trouble with Trillions"
http://en.wikipedia...uble_with_Trillions
[xaviergisz, Jan 07 2013]
The Million Pound Note
http://www.imdb.com...46072/?mode=desktop
Such notes do actually exist … [8th of 7, Jan 08 2013]
'Wired' article on this very topic
http://www.wired.co...one-trillion-theft/
Something in the air perhaps. [DrBob, Jan 10 2013]
[link]
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Why would the US mint a trillion dollar coin (or even
several of them)? Would it not be simpler just to
print several trillion dollars' worth of regular
banknotes? Or to declare that Obama's ballpoint pen
has a value of one trillion dollars? |
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I think the concept is that the US isn't actually
restricted on the value of bullion coins it can mint,
while there are legal restrictions on the bills it can
print (although why they couldn't print 10 million
hundreds remains open). |
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I'm assuming this is supposed to be a fiat value
coin that happens to be made out of platinum,
rather than a bullion value coin since, as near as I
can tell, it would require the worlds total supply of
platinum and then some otherwise (~20,000 tons). |
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Ah, that makes sense. No, hang on, it doesn't.
Shirley the government can remove legal restrictions
on currency printing? It's no more whimsical than
declaring a coin to be worth a trillion dollars. |
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(Aside - the English Brittania coin is one ounce of
gold, but has a face value of only £100.) |
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Obviously, the plot would be thwarted by a similar alliance for
Good, including Batman and Robin, Thunderbirds, Ghostbusters,
the A-team, Dr. Who, Superman, and Bond … James Bond … |
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If the trillion dollar coin were stolen, all the
government has to do is to re-declare its value to be
that of the platinum content. |
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//Shirley the government can remove legal
restrictions on currency printing?// |
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Theoretically, the president could order the mint
to produce this coin without congressional
approval right now. That's not going to happen,
but it's theoretically possible. Thus this posturing
by the Congressman in question to try to portray
the President as pro-inflation, with no business
sense. |
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And the US 1oz gold coin is a $20 face value. I
wouldn't recommend trying to use it that way
though. Anecdotally, one employer tried to pay
his employees in gold and only pay taxes on the
face value. The IRS was not happy with him. |
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As far as demonetizing it (which is
what resetting it to the metal content would be),
the US has never actually done that. At this point
any federal currency ever issued is legal tender,
although in most cases where this might be of
interest, it is worth more as a collectors item. |
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Such a coin would be a convenient way of paying for half a day's
street parking in Central London … |
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The whole thing is so close to the Triganic Pu I think Douglas Adams must be chortling somewhere. |
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Max, I think you are getting confused. In Westminster, parliament can pass any law it wants. In the Colonies they are a bit more constrained and have this constitution thing that is full of very inconvenient restrictions. |
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I am waiting on the fakes. |
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Would it make more sense to have a trillion dollars in a stack of Benjamins? |
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They'll *let* you steal it. |
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Then there will be a full paparazzi army following you around getting video of you trying to spend the damn thing. |
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Oh, the drama - will you be able to sell it to some other sucker for five grand? Or will someone shoot you for it? |
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More after these commercials... |
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I love this - a great idea really well written. |
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//I'm wondering how I'd get the change home, like
the can of coke was 40p, so that 1 trillion dollars
minus 60 cents(ish)..I suspect one wheel barrow
might not be enough?// |
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Assuming you could get the change in $100 bills, it
would weigh about 10,000 metric tons, and would
require over 330 20-foot-long ISO containers to hold
it all. |
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The fun of the trillion dollar coin idea is that you don't actually have to make one in order for the concept to work. Just use publicity to establish in people's minds that such a thing exists. Then let everyone 'know' that it's housed in your most high security vault and then act as if it really does exist. The concept's the thing with money, you see. |
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That's exactly what has been happening. Do keep up! The problem is, that once all this new money gets into circulation then inflation starts eating away at its value so it turns out that you didn't create as much money as you thought you did and if you haven't got an economy to back it up with then it becomes completely worthless. |
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Yes, it really has to be the banks. Otherwise it would
have to be us. |
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The value of this coin is so great that normally trivial risks, such as an earthquake destroys the vault where it's stored, or a thief from the future travels back in time to steal it, become significant. |
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I was about to say that the "coin" should be about the size of a manhole cover - but then I remembered a comment in a novel I read many years ago (probably Asimov, I think it was a Foundation novel) where he presented the idea of an object impossible for humans to pick up unassisted by equipment. Seems like it was a 1-meter cube of iridium; the number of people required to lift it would be more than can simultaneously get close enough to touch it. That would make a respectable 'coin'. |
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//The value of this coin is so great that normally
trivial risks... become significant.// |
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No they don't. The value of the coin is so great, but
the value of the _stolen_ coin is trivial. It could
only be resold by melting it down for scrap. |
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Incidentally, the US national debt is around $45,000
for every American man, woman and child. |
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The UK national debt, on the other hand, is about
£16,000 for every British man, woman and child. This
is about $24,000. On the third hand, we do have
Wales which can be sold to relieve the debt. |
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For Wales, my offering price (about the cost of a used Toyota spare wheel at a junkyard) may be a bit small in absolute terms, but I think you'll find it about average overall. |
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We could always give it to Scotland, and charge
them a trillion quid to take it back. Whether they
pay or not, we win. |
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//It could only be resold by melting it down for scrap.//
It doesn't have to be resold for its absence to be a problem. |
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If it is found to be absent, you just declare it no
longer legal tender, and mint a new coin. |
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[MB] We have Texas, which serves roughly the same
purpose. |
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No, they stole it off the Mexicans; unlike Louisiana (bought from
the french), Alaska (bought from the Russians), Panama (won in a
card game) and Canada
(returned as being the wrong size, the wrong colour, the wrong
flavour, and not what was originally ordered anyway
). |
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To be fair, they really kind of stole themselves, and
then we just sort of played finders keepers. |
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Trillion dollar coin? Didn't that idea originate HERE? |
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