United States treasury laws contain a bizarre loophole that theoretically allows the government to mint a single platinum coin with a face value of one trillion dollars to wipe out the national debt.

A closer look

United States treasury laws contain a bizarre loophole that theoretically allows the government to mint a single platinum coin with a face value of one trillion dollars to wipe out the national debt. While paper money and gold are heavily regulated, a quirk in a 1996 law gives the Treasury Secretary the sole authority to mint platinum coins in any denomination they choose. During debt ceiling crises, economists genuinely suggest striking a trillion-dollar coin, walking it over to the Federal Reserve, depositing it, and magically clearing the government's obligations. It sounds like the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon, but it is a legitimately legal macroeconomic maneuver. We live in a deeply unserious financial system where the looming threat of global economic collapse could technically be solved by a government official forging a really shiny piece of metal and yelling problem solved to a bunch of panicked accountants!