Apparently, we're moving closer and closer to a (potential) deal over the debt ceiling. Maybe, in the upcoming weeks, congress will finally move past all of this controversy over how we're paying for what and start to legislate on things that don't get people quite so riled up, like, ya know, gun control or something. Therefore, it seems that the whole controversy (can we even call it controversy? Maybe more like tomfoolery) over the the idea to avert the debt ceiling crisis through issuing a trillion dollar coin is behind us (especially since it looks like the Fed has put the kibosh on the platinum wonder nickel).
Now, it's not my goal in this particular blog to show how people have used images to mock this particular idea. Why is that? Because the media has already done so in seemingly every report about the trillion dollar coin. Instead, I would like to discuss for a bit why this story gets any traction in the first place.
Now most Americans, like myself, are not economists. That's why when watch and read the news about the coin, we become so dumbfounded. Partially, it's because we can at least understand the basics of what could be the problem here. We know that inflation is a thing, and that countries that just create mass amounts of money out of thin air do not have a great track record, and that keeping congress completely separate from some sort of budget solution probably doesn't create the greatest precedent. Therefore, we get behind the Jon Stewarts of the world, and call out the economists who have started to go against the grain.
The back and forth between the pundit and the economist. It's just such good TV, that we forget how we arrived at this junction in the first place.
Here is where I would like to draw your attention to something written by one of my favorite YouTubers, C.G.P. Grey, an online educator who makes short videos explaining topics both mainstream and obscure with easy-to-follow graphics. However, what I am referring to is a blog post, written by C.G.P Grey, criticizing the following NBC News clip (and really all TV news as a whole).
The puns. The cuts to practically unrelated media. Unrelated questions about coin size that have absolutely nothing to do with currency. BIEBER?!?! C.G.P. Grey blogs, this whole clip does nothing to actually accomplish the matter at hand: explaining the coin in the first place. Instead, all we get is the same shtick. The economy is going down the tubes, let's blame congress, because, after all, it is ridiculous. C.G.P Grey explains that this is because the news has become about keeping the ratings up by keeping the complexity of issues down and actually reporting. I would like to take this stance, and focus it in on the trillion dollar coin. This scenario that the news media has found itself in has created this trillion dollar coin fiasco in the first place. And lo and behold, it has to do with imagery.
The media exists to report on crisis, but here, no crisis existed. Oh sure, some fringe economists have been saying (for a quite a while actually, we just only really start hearing about it now) that this is an option for Obama to circumvent congress, and sure Paul Krugman, who has plenty of respect amongst economists, stated that a trillion dollar coin should be an option in the event that we don't avoid the debt crisis through more reasonable terms, but this coin was never going to happen. The fed would never allow such a media blitz to dictate how it should regulate the economy, and the only reason Obama and any other member of congress wouldn't come out in full force against the coin (besides just not wanting to give the issue the time of day) was because it's just not sound politics to go public to potential voters that an emergency action that could possibly save the economy is completely off the table.
But as if the media cares. A coin? A platinum coin? Through some commemorative coin loophole nonsense? We can sell this. People can visualize the entire US economy hinging on delivering a single coin. No need to focus on the problem at hand. Bad districting. Party structure. How government debt actually functions. That doesn't pop. But a coin! We'll be able to juice that for at least a week! And we won't even have to make our segments on it make sense!
And so it went. Think back to this the next time some harebrained scheme bubbles up out of the 24-hour news cycle. Does it actually exist, or is it just too bad to be true?
Thanks for reading. Truly though, I do hope you check out C.G.P. Grey's videos. They're some of the best insights I've seen into the way things are and the way things should be.
And get excited! My next blog post is already in the works. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it's going to be about what has taken over the news networks since the platinum coin has fallen from favor: Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o. It'll be interesting to see what other info comes in over the next couple of days, and what the public does with that. In any case, I hope to have it up sometime next week. Keep an eye out ;)
@Post_It_2013
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