On December 6, 2012, among many things that happened that day I would like to point out two: 1) Senator Jim DeMint resigned from the US Congress and 2) Dr. Stephanie Kelton coined (pun intended) the twitter hash tag #MintTheCoin.
Former Senator DeMint’s resignation was huge news that day and #MintTheCoin made nary a blip on any media outlet except Twitter. Today, Jim DeMint is hardly talked about and #MintTheCoin is sparking a much needed national dialog on the monetary system. A fortuitous spark of inspiration by Dr. Kelton, aka @deficitowl on Twitter, has given a counterbalance to a political faction whose strategy is to hold the US Economy hostage by use of an artificially created debt ceiling.
Here is a screen capture of her original tweet:
Dr. Kelton, thanks for your clever turn of a phrase and to all the Modern Money Theory (MMT) messengers speaking truth to power about the real basis for our woeful economic state of affairs with regard to monetary operations. Also, a quick word of thanks to Dr. Joseph Firestone, writer and curator extraordinaire on facts documenting the origin and basis for the trillion dollar coin that #MintTheCoin references. Read Dr. Firestone’s excellent post “Origin and Early History of Platinum Coin Seigniorage” here.
To follow the social media battle between hashtag #MintTheCoin click here or the fear mongering, hysteria-tag #DebtCeiling click here.
