Kooky? A gimmick? Trillion dollar coin floated as last-resort debt crisis solution

Some politicians think they've found a silver bullet for the impasse over the debt limit, except the bullet is made of platinum: Mint a $1 trillion coin, token of all tokens, and use it to flood the treasury with cash and drive Republicans crazy.

Even its serious proponents - who are not that many - call it a gimmick. They say it is an oddball way out of an oddball accounting problem that will have severe consequences to average people's pocketbooks and the economy if it's not worked out in coming days.

But despite all the jokes about who should go on the face of the coin - Chuck E. Cheese? Donald Trump, to tempt or taunt the GOP? - there's scholarship behind it, too. However improbable, it is conceivable the government could turn $1 trillion into a coin of the realm without lawmakers having a say.