NPR.

We are in the thick of another debt ceiling season.

The US legally can't borrow any more money and politicians are digging in for another round

of brinkmanship over whether to raise the debt limit.

Yeah, and we covered this on yesterday's episode.

And in the meantime, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has implemented what she calls

extraordinary measures to make sure that the government can keep paying its bills.

But some folks in economic and legal circles are proposing measures that you might describe

as even more extraordinary than what's already in place.

And one of those proposals involves making a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion.

One coin to rule them all.

That's right.

This is an idea that first popped up over a decade ago and has attracted a lot of buzz

in the current news cycle.

It even has a hashtag, hashtag, mint the coin.

Which might lead you to think, surely this is some kind of economics inside joke.

But it is very much not a joke and don't call me Shirley.

This is the indicator from planet money.

I'm Whelen Wong.

And I'm Daryl Edwards.

Today on the show, we will explain the origins of this trillion dollar coin idea.

And we try to figure out is this trillion dollar coin just this wacky gimmick?

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