According to a post over at the Pragmatic Capitalist, it would be legal for the (or Royal Mint) US treasury to mint a coin with £1 Trillion face value. Present it to the US Federal Reserve and payoff part of the US national debt. I don't see why to stop there, why not 14 coins and pay it all off?
The way debt is paid off under the current system is to create more debt to pay off old debt. As debt carries an interest charge, more money is created than actually exists.
As we have noted many times, the institution of The Mint is ancient. Under the old system Seigniorage was changed when coins (or notes) were created. This fee still occurs today, but it does not get paid on ALL money, only on coins.
Because banks create money (in reality credit) they should pay Seigniorage, but they do not.
I will dig out the post but if Seigniorage was charged on all money, we could abolish taxes all together.
The original post has far more information and links to several sources worth reading.
