UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Monday it’s waiting to find out how much of the nearly $4 billion the United States owes the world organization the Trump administration intends to pay and when the money will arrive.
The U.S. Mission to the United Nations confirmed that U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said the Trump administration planned to make a significant down payment on its arrears in a matter of weeks, with the final amount still to be determined. His comments were first reported by Reuters.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last week that the world body faces “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues, a message clearly directed at the United States.
Maybe? I know the rules around specie are kinda wonky, and I definitely know that it’s been seriously proposed as a way to nominally pay off the debt without impacting the currency. I am definitely open to a “you’re misunderstanding the economics here” explanation though, because it’s always felt a bit hand-wavy to me.
Depositing a $2 trillion dollar coin to reduce the nominal debt would itself have relatively little impact on the.value of the dollar, since it’s just in the essentially fake books of the US national government. Dollars, after all, are just coupons for “I am worth $1 towards any US government debt or court judgement.”
Depositing a $2 billion coin with the UN, in contrast, would have exactly the same inflationary pressure as giving 200,000,000 Americans 2000 $1 coins.
Money isn’t real. It is hand-wavy, because it’s just an idea.
I especially feel that once people start trying to explain why this only works with a coin and would not work with a note.