You may remember that in Part One of the 94-Part Series I contended that the Platinum Coin was both "illegal and ill-advised." The "illegal" part was vindicated a week ago when the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve went public with a statement that neither believes "the law can or should be used" to produce the Trillion Dollar Coin.
And now the "ill-advised" part of my post is vindicated as well. As Reader(s)™ will recall, I argued that if Obama used the Trillion Dollar Coin option, it would destroy his own very strong position against the debt-ceiling brinkmanship. Instead, I advised Obama to "fight this battle from the high ground and on the merits"—where it could not be lost.
Sure enough, this was the winning strategy, as should have been obvious to anyone with a brain. And yet many smart people—including Paul Krugman, Josh Barro, and Matt Yglesias—essentially freaked out and made fools of themselves in this affair. Krugman infamously accused the Obama people of being "hopeless negotiators" when they ruled out the Platinum Coin.
Thank goodness these people aren't actually in charge of anything. But when that glorious day comes and the Gillette-Torvik Blog is in charge, you all can rest easy.
This is Part 7 in The Gillette-Torvik Blog's 94-Part Series on the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin idea.
Excellent work Mr. Torvik.
ReplyDeleteMaybe our motto should be: smarter than Krugman, Barro, and Yglesias.
To his credit, Krugman admitted he was wrong.
ReplyDelete