1hundredsixty8

Following up on this morning's post, in which I neglected to referencet Edward Kleinbard's op-ed in this morning NY Times. As I suspect @jbarro and @TheStalwart intended, the discussion precipitated by their advocacy of the trillion-dollar platinum coin has musroomed.  Mr. Kleinbard, a former Senate staffer and currently a law professor at USC (though not directly affiliated, I hope, with my lamented Trojan football team) is a proponent of the government issuing script in lieu of paying its bills. In effect, handing out IOU's until it can borrow the funds or generate enough in revenue to actually pay the bills. He makes the point that script is negotiable and could be redeemed at a bank say, for "real" paper money. This was actually done in California a few years back as the state struggled with its budget shortfall.

Interesting, but I still think the coin is way cooler.