Have you heard the latest news on theย fake debt-ceiling fight?
The Senate has approved a measure to kick the can down the road a couple of months. So, the โfightโ will continue!
The $480 billion increase raises the debt limit to $28.9 trillion, but thatโs only going to last until Dec. 3. That means we have time for more political theater.ย
Itโs silly because thereโs a 100 percent chance that the debt ceiling is going to be raised.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants to just get rid of the debt ceiling altogether. That would really be more honest. The whole concept is just a dog and pony show. This is what you get when you have a government completely untethered from any constitutional limits. The feds literally think they can do whatever they want
And they do.
Or course, that costsย a lot of money. The intended constitutional system with federal powers “few and defined” (as James Madison described the system in Federalist #45) would never spend $6 trillion in a single year. But the constitutional system has been flipped on its head. Today’s federal government exercises “numerous and indefinite” powers that were intended to remain to with the states and the people.
So, they are going to keep borrowing and spending until the entire Ponzi scheme collapses.
And it really is a Ponzi scheme. I donโt think saying that is hyperbole. If you think about it, the whole debt ceiling debate reveals a dirty little secret. If they donโt raise the borrowing limit, the government may have to default on its debt. So, what theyโre saying is if we canโt sucker more people into lending us money, the people who already lent us money arenโt going to get paid back. We need new borrowing to pay for the old borrowing. This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
But apparently, all of this is unnecessary. The solution has been there all along. They just have to mint a $1 trillion coin.
Iโm not kidding. This is a serious proposal being pushed by โseriousโ people.
The idea is that the U.S. Treasury could just mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin, deposit it at the Fed, and viola โ debt problem solved. The U.S. wouldnโt have to borrow any more money. It would instantly have $1 trillion at its disposal.
Iโm not really certain why it needs to be a platinum coin though. I mean, they could just write $1 trillion on a napkin with a green crayon and it would be just as legitimate. But I guess they have to do some things to maintain the illusion of propriety.
This goes to show how smart people can be really dumb.
You do realize this is dumb, right?
This is a monetary disaster waiting to happen. It would put inflation on hyperdrive. Itโs really no different than what they did in Zimbabwe. We know how that worked.
But weโre dealing with smart people here and theyโll tell you โthis is different.โ Theyโll offer all kinds of plausible reasons it will work. Theyโll talk about the dollar being the reserve currency. They show you some convincing-looking accounting tautologies. Theyโll babble and spin and suddenly youโll be thinking, โHell yeah! A $1 trillion coin! Thatโs the ticket.โ
No.
Itโs not.
Supposedly, they can keep this from being inflationary by just dribbling the new money out as they need it. But this is the federal government weโre talking about here. Do you really think politicians will be restrained with $1 trillion in the bank? And when they blow through that, we can just mint another one of those puppies. So, they wonโt dribble. It would create an even bigger cascade of spending.
Of course, the reality is weโre already doing this. The Fed just creates money out of thin air every day, but the process is more indirect than minting a coin.
This is what you get when you have an entire school of economics that disconnects money from stuff. Thatโs the real problem here. The government could create a $50 trillion coin. But it canโt create stuff.
Weโve been snowed into thinking money makes the economy go, but ultimately it comes down to stuff.
And the Treasury canโt create stuff out of thin air. Uncle Samย canโt mint cars and food and clothing and commodities and oil and all of the other actual stuff we need. What happens when you create more money without creating more stuff? You get rising prices. Thatโs where we are today. We are seeing this play out. But again, we have people who exerciseย zero self-reflection. They are coming up with dumb ways to solve problems they created in the first place.
Anyway, Iโm hungry. Iโm a little short on cash, so I think Iโll take a post-it note and write $10 on it.ย Iโll give it to the folks over at McDonaldโs. I mean, if the government can do it, why canโt I? Iโll let you know how it goes.
- Writs, Riots, and Redcoats: Hancock’s Spark of the Revolution - January 17, 2026
- The National Bank That Breached the Articles of Confederation - June 2, 2025
- Virginia Association of 1769: A Step Toward Continental Unity - May 12, 2025