Fox News swore a trillion dollar platinum coin would weigh 18,000 tons. The National Republican Congressional Committee figured just one of them would sink the Titanic. Maybe one did. Has anybody unraveled that fiasco?

So goes this crop of madness. What? A giant coin! Matthew Yglesias rebukes the hysterics when he reminds them that the paper in a hundred dollar bill isn’t worth a hundred dollars. Ann Althouse presses herself into service. Dude you are dumb:

“The biggest and weirdest myth out there about the $1 trillion platinum coin is…”

Matthew Yglesias debunks a myth without establishing that anyone believes it.

Clue to Matt: No one believes it.

Click the links and see for yourself. Coins and greenbacks hold no essential value, yet the pundits went looking for the weight-to-value ratio of platinum on the open market. To Ann, it speaks of intelligence.

This is one of those glaring examples of the attitude of superiority leading to missing humor and subtlety. You may think you’re smart, but it’s not smart to assume other people aren’t smart too. I recommend a working assumption that other people are smart, and when you think you’re reading something ridiculously stupid, go through the exercise of reading it with the thought that the writer is wonderfully clever.

It was satirical the way Fox News pretended coins were worth their stated values. Though it enraged the viewing droolers, the Lenny Bruces were going all-out for subtlety and wit.

No way I’m buying that. Perhaps Ann’s clever friends wouldn’t believe “something ridiculously stupid,” but right-wingers everywhere can’t stop doing it:

Putting A Trillion Dollars Of Platinum In Perspective
ZeroHedge | Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/04/2013

So you want a trillion dollar platinum coin? Ok: here are some facts:

• Platinum has traditionally been the most valuable precious metal for one simple reason: it is rare.
• It is so rare, that all the platinum ever mined could fit into a 25 cubic foot box.
• The weight of that box comes out to just over 16 tons: this is how much platinum has been mined since the start of time.
• A coin valued at $1 trillion and made out of platinum would, at today’s price of $1557/ounce, weigh in at 642.3 million ounces.
• 642.3 million ounces is also roughly 18 thousand tons, or about 1100 times more than all the platinum mined.

Emphases in original. Tyler the rebel at ZeroHedge brings you this rattling exposé because the establishment won’t. Well aware of how his blogging threatens the man, Tyler can no longer tell you his real name.

. . used by the likes of mark twain (aka samuel langhorne clemens) to criticize common ignorance, and perhaps most famously by alexander hamilton, james madison and john jay (aka publius) to write the federalist papers, we think ourselves in good company in using one or another nom de plume.

Routine ignorance, thy hours are numbered. Durden’s coup de grace:

In other words, putting a coin that is worth $1 trillion in perspective to all the platinum ever mined, would look something like this:

Good luck getting all that metal out of the mountain, John Henry, before the debt ceiling. Soon enough someone at Politico starts a thread on the making of the maxzilla coin. Look at that first comment:

sheer idiocy!

Putting A Trillion Dollars Of Platinum In Perspective

So you want a trillion dollar platinum coin? Ok: here are some facts:

–Platinum has traditionally been the most valuable precious metal for one simple reason: it is rare.

–It is so rare, that all the platinum ever mined could fit into a 25 cubic foot box.

–The weight of that box comes out to just over 16 tons: this is how much platinum has been mined since the start of time.

—A coin valued at $1 trillion and made out of platinum would, at today’s price of $1557/ounce, weigh in at 642.3 million ounces.

–642.3 million ounces is also roughly 18 thousand tons, or about 1100 times more than all the platinum mined.

What morons! Who elects these clowns?

And what if China calls in their debt? Who has a pennyloafer that size?

Durden’s pronouncements on the platinum coin hold sway at site after site, with names like ewallstreeter, topnewstoday, bullfax, redliontrader, jmdeherrera, equityhelpdesk, and stocksupdate. Few of them look like Funny Or Die.