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Is a one trillion dollar coin the solution for debt?

Friday, January 11, 2013 - 01:07

Jan. 11 - An online petition is calling for the U.S. Mint to make the coin in order to pay off the country's debt. Alicia Powell reports.

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Could the answer to the U.S. economy's woes be solved with the creation of one platinum coin to the value of one trillion dollars? Well that's what pundits have offered as a comical solution to the country's debt-crisis. An online petition on Whitehouse.gov calls for signatures to "Direct the United States Mint to make a single platinum trillion dollar coin". And it's already gathered over 7,000 signatures. The idea even caught the attention of comic Stephen Colbert. SOUNDBITE: Stephen Colbert, comedian, saying (English): "We should have known that a coin was Obama's solution to everything. It was right there in his slogan - 'change.'" Several parodies of what the trillion dollar coin should look like include the faces of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, current U.S. President Barack Obama, and his vice-president, Joe Biden. If the tongue-in-cheek idea were ever to become a reality -- you'd need a handful of these coins to even scratch the surface. The current U.S. debt stands at over $16 trillion U.S. dollars.

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