Abstract
The power to coin money is a fundamental constitutional power and central element of fiscal policymaking, along with spending, taxing, and borrowing. However, it remains neglected in constitutional and administrative law, despite the fact that money creation has been central to the United States’ fiscal capacities and constraints since at least1973, when it abandoned convertibility of the dollar into gold. This neglect is particularly prevalent in the context of debt ceiling crises, which emerge when Congress fails to grant the executive sufficient borrowing authority to finance spending in excess of taxes. In such instances, prominent legal and economic scholars have argued that the President should choose the “least unconstitutional option” of breaching the debt ceiling, rather than impeding on Congress’s even more fundamental powers to tax and spend. However, this view fails to consider a fourth, arguably more constitutional option: minting a high value coin under an obscure provision of the Coinage Act, and using the proceeds to circumvent the debt ceiling entirely. Reintroducing coinage into our fiscal discourse raises novel and interesting questions about the broader nature of, and relationship between “money” and “debt.” It also underscores how legal debates over fiscal policy implicate broader social myths about money. As we enter the era of digital currency, creative legal solutions like high value coinage have the potential to serve as imaginative catalysts that enable us to collectively develop new monetary myths that better fit our modern context and needs.The platinum coin redux.
Rohan Grey
Administering Money: Coinage, Debt Crises, and the Future of Fiscal Policy
4 comments:
Yo they just had $470B in the TGA just the other day...
ALL... TIME... HIGH...
so maybe you Art Degree morons can think of it as a "half trillion dollar coin" .... BIG DEAL... it makes NO DIFFERENCE to what is happening...
And btw lets look what happens over the next few weeks if they run down the account that has the "half trillion dollar coin" just put in it...
"that enable us to collectively develop new monetary myths"
Yeah just what we need... more "myth!".... that ought to do it...
Matt,
Yes: I was wondering what Grey thinks he’s doing advocating a “myth”!!
That ties up with the impression I've had of Grey for a year or two now, which is that he's a bit of a windbag.
Also in a work entitled “Administering Money….” it’s bizarre not to mention the fact that PRIVATE / COMMERCIAL BANKS issue the large majority of money in circulation. I word searched for “private bank”. The phrase just ain’t there. “Commercial bank” does appear a few times, but not in connection with money creation by commercial banks.
That just confirms my impression that Grey is not too clued up.
It’s the training Ralph....
Legal training is good for legal matters.... we’re not facing a question of legality....
We already have the FRA and the Humphrey-Hawkins Act here in US the legal aspects are already covered....
Jay Powell at the Fed can probably recite the Securities Act of 1933 verbatim from memory.... yet he thinks we’re out of money and banks lend out the reserves.... he’s right now buying 80b per month if USTs to increase Reserves at depositories so they have more “to lend out”....
Same reification error all the unqualified monetarist people are always making... Powell’s legal training is of no use and not applicable.... why is he there???
We need people with training in Accounting science and applied regulatory mathematics....
We gotta watch what happens now over the next couple weeks in advance of the big quarter end tax payments due Mar 15th...
They just ran the TGA up to all time highs at half a $trillion... now if they just run it back down for two weeks it’s like they did half the $1T coin and now are going to spend out of the Treasury account without issuing any USTs ... so it’s going to be the same operations as the MMT “coin”...
Let’s just see what happens.... I’m looking for more significant reduction in risk asset prices if they spend the Treasury account down without issuing USTs .... taxes due March 15 and then more April 15 should then reduce reserves at depositories and maybe this all ends...
Till these morons do it all over agin...
Post a Comment