U.S. mint

Mint a trillion dollar coin?

I really don't know why the administration doesn't take the "mint the trillion dollar platinum coin" option seriously. It is, as far as I can tell, perfectly legal. - Eschaton

The quote above is in reference to this Firedog Lake post on the Fiscal cliff and the latest Republican Doomsday plan for dealing with the fiscal cliff:

It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the president nothing more – no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.

FireDog Lake responded to this news of the GOP economic bomb with:

if the vote includes just the Senate bill, where does that leave us? On January 1, taxes go up on not just the top marginal rates, but on every income earner, when the Bush tax cuts expire. Two million people immediately lose their unemployment benefits. Medicare reimbursement rates drop 30%. The sequester on defense and discretionary spending goes into place, and while OMB has the ability to lessen the impact there for several weeks, they can’t hold back the tide forever. And the country will hit the debt limit by the end of February or the beginning of March.

U.S. Mint runs out

Yesterday there were two headlines of interest. One of which was about gold.

(Reuters) - The U.S. mint sold 190,000 1-ounce American Eagle gold coins in May, the largest number since January 1999, and the most in any month so far in 2010, according to a spokesman for the U.S. agency.

The other news article was about silver.

The United States Mint’s bullion 2010 American Silver Eagles posted their best May and second best sales month in history, according to the most recent figures available from the Mint.
In just the one month, buyers purchased an astonishing 3,636,500 of the one ounce .999 fine silver coins. This number smashes the old May record of 1,904,500 set last year.
May 2010 sales fell short of the best month ever by only 59,500.

So with all that gold and silver leaving the mint, I guess today's bulletins aren't really all that surprising.