Another round of political brinkmanship is playing out in Washington DC over the United States government's debt ceiling.

There are predictions of global financial chaos if Democrats and Republicans can't agree on a deal to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, currently at US$31.4 trillion, soon. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says if something's not done the US government won't be able to meet its financial obligations as soon as June 1. That includes salaries for government employees and the military, pensions and making interest payments on government debt.

President Joe Biden says if the US defaults on its debt "the whole world is in trouble."

There is, however, a silly sounding yet simple and constitutional solution available. It involves minting a very high value platinum coin. 

In the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast I spoke with Rohan Grey, Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University's College of Law in Oregon, about the debt ceiling, the platinum coin and more.

Grey explains how and why the US federal government came to have a debt ceiling, when the debt ceiling become a political football, what the idea of minting a US$1 trillion platinum coin is all about, and where it comes from.

"It sounds ridiculous, it almost shocks the conscious, but it is legal," Grey says, adding that the US government actually minting the coin would be "a public education moment."

"If there's one thing that the president and the Treasury Secretary are not allowed to do it's default. There's no constitutional authority to default. The 14th Amendment says you cannot do it, the existing laws say you cannot do it, Congress did not give them an option to default. They gave them multiple pathways to finance spending and they told them they had to spend. So at the end of the day even if Biden really hates it, even if it really makes him feel stupid and silly, the coin isn't a choice. It is the last option before an unthinkable, prohibited option," says Grey.

"What a coin represents in my opinion, is the bringing back of the budget to a level that the public can understand. No complicated bond markets, no complicated debt instruments, it's something that you can talk to your seven year-old about. And to me it's only silly to people who think sounding very serious is being very serious."

You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.