Mint the Premium Bonds!

As Congress looks increasingly likely to force a default on U.S. government debt for no real reason, there are two possible approaches for a rational outside observer to take, which are (1) despair and (2) hare-brained scheming. Option 1 is probably correct, honestly, and you can get your fill of it elsewhere; Martin Wolf's despair is eloquent. But Option 2 -- coming up with creepy tricks to avoid reality, reality being the debt ceiling and a pointless default -- is more fun so let's talk about it here.

The creepy trick that has swept the nation* is the platinum coin option, in which Treasury mints a $1 trillion platinum coin, deposits it at the Fed, and suddenly has an extra $1 trillion of money to spend without incurring any debt (and, thus, without breaching the debt ceiling). This is a good trick as tricks go, and it's been extensively advocated by Josh Barro, Paul Krugman, Matt Yglesias, Joe Weisenthal, basically every economics blogger really. I am unaware of any good arguments that the platinum coin wouldn't work, but it does have the problem that it is really really really really obviously a trick. I mean, it's a trillion dollar coin, come on. So it's sort of sub-optimal symbolically, and would make people really mad. It's a crisis-enhancer, although with the benefit of avoiding immediate default.