Things We Would Buy With a Trillion-Dollar Coin

Politics

Things We Would Buy With a Trillion-Dollar Coin

9:30 am, January 9th | by Colette McIntyre

The most recent proposed solution to the whole debt ceiling kerfuffle is the minting of a one trillion-dollar coin, and it is taking the Internet and Nobel prize winning economists by storm. What is the trillion-dollar coin and how might it save us from the impending economic Doomsday? Well, the idea is that the Treasury would mint a platinum coin worth one trillion dollars, deposit it at the Federal Reserve, and then the U.S government would be able to pay its bills, circumventing Congress and the whole messy process of raising the debt ceiling.

Sure, we think ensuring that the government doesn’t enter an economy-destroying default is important and all, but if we had our hands on a trillion-dollar coin, we would turn into regular ol’ Scrooge McDucks: polishing the coin, biting on the coin, getting the coin changed into $1 coins and diving in and out of the resulting money piles.

On the off-chance that you happen to come across a trillion-dollar coin, perhaps in your coin binder between New Hampshire’s and Virginia’s state quarters, we have come up with a few options for how to spend your money. Below, check out our trillion-dollar coin “to buy list”, called “SPARE CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN.”

1. Kiplinger.com approximates that $1 trillion would buy 140 billion hours of labor. You know what that means: limestone sphinx with the head of the Dowager Countess, here you come!

2. Buy the entire world’s supply of truffles and truffle oil so that never again would you have to see some struggling Chopped contestant throw truffles on a mediocre dish in order to make it to the next round. (How dare they insult Alex Guarnaschelli’s palette like that!)

3. Fund one million $1 million boxing fights between Hillary Swank look-a-likes.

4. Purchase enough buildings, puppeteers, prosthetics, industrial-sized googly eyes, and explosives to make these GIFs happen in real life.

5. Spend an exorbitant amount on the toy machine outside of your local diner, ending up with millions of temporary tattoos of spiders with magic eight balls for abdomens, holographic alien head stickers, and neon rubber balls with flashing lights inside.

6. Do everything the kid in Blank Check does, ONE MILLION TIMES.

7. Own and operate your own space program; send Lance Bass into space every year. He needs this.

8. Remake Avatar using the same innovative technology, special effects and actors — except Zoe Saldana, because you’ll be playing the blue chick that gets with Sam Worthington, duh. Keep everything the same except refer to the two main protagonists as Pocahontas and John Smith. Have enough money left over to buy every single DVD copy of Avatar in the world, replacing the discs with your version. Pay someone to get Kathryn Bigelow’s personal cell number and text her a picture of you winking.

9. Indecently propose à la Robert Redford to a million crushes of your choice or one Michael Fassbender.

10. Hope that the sheer mystical and magical nature of a trillion-dollar coin endows it with the ability to actually work on those tampon dispensers that mock you in dive bars/the airport, eating your change and spitting out nothing but sad noises and gusts of air that are chillier than both the room and the winter streets outside. Knowing those machines, the coin will probably get stuck and you’ll cry until your friend who knows how to hot wire cars wiggles it out with a bobby pin.

TAGS: Barack Obama | debt ceiling | trillion-dollar coin