The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.
That’s the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today.
“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,”
he said.
The inclusion of the Federal Reserve is significant. For the platinum coin idea to work, the Federal Reserve would have to treat it as a legal way for the Treasury Department to create currency. If they don’t believe it’s legal and would not credit the Treasury Department’s deposit, the platinum coin would be worthless.
This statement from Ezra Klein would have us believe that the Federal Reserve is an independent agent in this matter, and that it can refuse to credit the deposit of a newly minted high face value proof platinum coin, if the Treasury makes such a deposit. It also assumes that if the Treasury insisted on the deposit of the coin, that the Fed would be in a position to go Court to contest that; that it has a choice in the matter.
I don't believe that either of these things are true. I also think they are just a rationalization, so the President, who most probably decided this can pretend that this decision isn't on him; or at least can be partially blamed on the Fed. Let's review some critical aspects of the relationship between the Fed and the Treasury. Read below the fold...
I wonder if Obama’s face will be carved into Mount Rushmore. Has the universe seriously become that cruelly surreal and Orwellian?
I think so.
A few days ago when I saw Obama’s likeness photoshopped onto Mount Rushmore on Al Sharpton’s show it made bitter bile burn my throat and choke me.
I then managed to scream and announce to a brother and nephew that if or when Obama ended up memorialized in such a way that would be the day I moved to another country.
Look for some gibberish ending in ".js". I want to improve the site by making some scripts appear only in the exact context they are needed, but I need to know which scripts are causing the problem before investing too much time. Read below the fold...
Under the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) currently being negotiated, foreign investors in partially privatised energy companies would be able to seek damages against the Government for implementing any law or regulation that was claimed by foreign investors to be detrimental to their interests.
Sixty-five is the normal retirement age, but many Americans are working much later in life, and it's not just because they need the money.
The number of workers who are 75 and older has skyrocketed by 76.7% in the past two decades, according to research by the AARP Public Policy Institute. "We[*] are living longer, healthier lives," says Kerry Hannon, author of Great Jobs for Everyone 50+. "And the types of work that people do is not as labor intensive as it was in our parents' generation." ...
While the 75-plus group of workers has jumped, it's still a small percentage of the American labor force. It represented 7.6% last year, up from 4.3% in 1990.
But there might be more 75-plus workers if it were easier for them to keep their jobs. "I really love my work, and I feel quite useful," says Judge John J. Driscoll, a juvenile court judge in Westmoreland County, Pa. But because he turned 70 last year, he now faces mandatory retirement. Read below the fold...
CNN on the upcooming PBS special, "The Abolitionists." Good summary, and this caught my eye:
Want to know why slavery lasted so long? The simplistic answer: racism. Another huge factor: greed, according to "The Abolitionists."
But the spread of Christianity [in the Great Awakening] did little to stop the spread of slavery because too many Americans made money off slavery, the documentary shows. The wealth produced by slavery transformed the United States from an economic backwater into an economic and military dynamo, says Gilpin, also author of "John Brown Still Lives!: America's Long Reckoning With Violence, Equality, and Change."
"All the combined economic value of industry, land and banking did not equal the value of humans held as property in the South," Gilpin says.
Many Americans hated abolitionists because they saw them as a threat to prosperity, says David Blight, a Yale University historian featured in "The Abolitionists." Read below the fold...
The Republicans are crazy, except the ones like Eric Cantor who seek to profit from a default. And I don't think that the bankster backers will call them back, there is even a possibility that the banksters are egging them on. The banksters may see to personally profit while the government bails out their companies. Read below the fold...
Czech photographer Katka Pruskova shot time-lapse footage of 22 different flowers opening (and sometimes closing) and distilled it all down to a video less than 3 minutes long. A spectacular way to begin the week. Enjoy! (h/t americablog) Read below the fold...
Submitted by DCblogger on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 8:59pm
There will be elections this year in VA and NJ (gubernatorial, and state legislature), and municipal elections in NY, MA, TX, CA, MN, NE, and OK.
So if you are Green Party, or some other emergent party, it is time to about running for office. Should you? My first question is how would your family like it? If they wouldn't, it is a big no-no. My second question is, do you have any sort of personal network that would support you? Would your dog-walker play group support you? Would your church support your? PTA? Garden club? computer user group?
If you are on your county council, you can refuse the use of drones in your locality. You can refuse use permits to oil pipelines. There are all manner of environmental and civil liberty victories to be had on the local level. If you run for sheriff, clerk of the court, or recorder of deeds, you can insist that foreclosures be done legally. You can insist on proper documentation.
Running for local office offers you your best chance of victory. At the local level you may be able to shake enough hands, knock on enough doors, to counter the effect of a larger purse. Money matters the least at the local level, personal encounters count for the most. Read below the fold...
Submitted by john.halle on Sun, 01/13/2013 - 8:24pm
Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on Friday, was by all accounts a remarkable person. But he was by no means a radical. In his brief role as an organizer with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, he was among those who were convinced that with sufficient pressure from its activist base, the Obama administration would eventually reveal its deeply obscured roots in traditional New Deal/Great Society liberalism. Read below the fold...
More than 100 young people stormed a TransCanada office in Houston, Texas on Monday as part of a Tar Sands Blockade mass action targeting company offices across the United States. Blockaders streamed into the Houston office, occupying the space with their own hand-crafted “KXL pipe monster.”
Arc of Justice - March and Rally to protest drones and other injustices. The event will begin at Meridian Hill Park (Malcolm X Park) with a rally at 9 am. At 10 am we will proceed down 16th Street NW to K Street NW where we will disband, some to continue to the Inauguration area, the parade route, or back to the rally site.
