BILL GROSS: The $1 Trillion Coin Is Unlikely, But There's A Very Similar Solution That Is Possible
By Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider
A very big name in the world of economics has joined the Trillion Dollar Coin debate.
It's PIMCO's Bill Gross:
In other words, rather than creating one gigantic clown coin, the solution would be more feasible if done in smaller denomination.
This is the idea put forth by Interfluidity, in a superb blog post. The argument is basically that you can achieve the same debt ceiling work around by small denomination platinum coins until the debt ceiling is hiked.
The Treasury won’t and shouldn’t mint a single, one-trillion-dollar platinum coin and deposit it with the Federal Reserve. That’s fun to talk about but dumb to do. It just sounds too crazy. But the Treasury might still plan for coin seigniorage. The Treasury Secretary would announce that he is obliged by law to make certain payments, but that the debt ceiling prevents him from borrowing to meet those obligations. Although current institutional practice makes the Federal Reserve the nation’s primary issuer of currency, Congress in its foresight gave this power to the US Treasury as well. Following a review of the matter, the Secretary would tell us, Treasury lawyers have determined that once the capacity to make expenditures by conventional means has been exhausted, issuing currency will be the only way Treasury can reconcile its legal obligation simultaneously to make payments and respect the debt ceiling.
Therefore, Treasury will reluctantly issue currency in large denominations (as it has in the past) in order to pay its bills. In practice, that would mean million-, not trillion-, dollar coins, which would be produced on an “as-needed” basis to meet the government’s expenses until borrowing authority has been restored. On the same day, the Federal Reserve would announce that it is aware of the exigencies facing the Treasury, and that, in order to fulfill its legal mandate to promote stable prices, it will “sterilize” any issue of currency by the Treasury, selling assets from its own balance sheet one-for-one. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve would hold a press conference and reassure the public that he foresees no difficulty whatsoever in preventing inflation, that the Federal Reserve has the capacity to “hoover up” nearly three trillion dollars of currency and reserves at will.
That would be it. There would be no farcical march by the Secretary to the central bank. The coins would actually circulate (collectors’ items for billionaires!), but most of them would find their way back to the Fed via the private banking system. The net effect of the operation would be equivalent to borrowing by the Treasury: instead of paying interest directly to creditors, Treasury would forgo revenue that it otherwise would have received from the Fed, revenue the Fed would have earned on the assets it would sell to the public to sterilize the new currency. The whole thing would be a big nothingburger, except to the people who had hoped to use debt-ceiling chicken as leverage to achieve political goals.
SEE ALSO: Why the trillion dollar coin debate is the most important fiscal policy debate you'll ever see >
