The trillion dollar coin fiasco has been percolating through the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington D.C. and even caused a kerfuffle for the “The Daily Show,” hosted by Jon Stewart.

First of all, the money represented by the trillion dollar coin comes from several places: from the huge surplus squandered by George W. Bush during his term in office; the bill(s) for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; and the tax cut for the rich – it’s the majority of our current deficit.

And the idea behind the trillion dollar coin is admittedly bizarre – but it is at least a legal idea to get around the country’s debt ceiling. In 1997, over the objections of a Democratic administration, Republicans in Congress passed a statue. And when that attempt proved painful, they passed Statute 31 USC 5112(k), permitting the issuance of platinum numismatic coins, allowing the Treasury to mint and issue platinum bullion coins at their discretion when they may prescribe to do so, from time to time.

This law gives Treasury the power to mint a one trillion dollar coin – or even a $1 quadrillion coin. And if they ever do decide to mint such a coin, instead of selling it, this coin could be deposited at the Federal Reserve, and the Fed would credit the account of the U.S. government for the face value of the coin. Wham! That’s a trillion dollars in debt liabilities gone all at once. Social Security checks and Medicare spending can be carried out without hitting any debt ceiling, giving the White House a chance to circumvent the fumes from Congress and the grease to avoid another fiscal cliff showdown.

“It sounds silly but it’s absolutely legal. It would normally not be proper to consider such a thing, except when you’re faced with blackmail to destroy the country’s economy, you have to consider things,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, who signed on to the trillion dollar coin plan.

In a segment on “The Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart lampooned the thought of a trillion dollar coin, joking that “If we're going to make shit up – I say go big, or go home,” hinting that it makes just as much sense to mint a twenty trillion dollar coin or maybe happening to “find” a one hundred quillion dollar bill (with a centaur and a unicorn as the bill's emblem) in the White House sofa cushions. It was a joke!

But “New York Times” columnist Paul Krugman, even after calling the coin idea “silly” himself,  didn’t get the humor in Stewart's comments, “It is a funny thing. But you want to be funny from a point of view of understanding what the issues are,” Krugman said. “Part of the point about Stewart…is that he’s funny, but that the show is actually better informed than most of our public discussions. The idea is that the show should be like an especially good episode of the roundtable on “This Week,” but in the form of jokes. But when he just turns it into dumb – ‘I don’t know nothing, but those people look dumb to me’ – he’s ruining his own brand.”

Stewart doesn’t take that kind of criticism of his show lightly, especially coming from someone of Krugman’s stature calling Stewart lazy and saying that his show displayed a “lack of professionalism” by not taking the trillion dollar coin issue seriously. (How, by the way? By not making his jokes serious enough?)

Responding to Krugman’s comments, Stewart stated emphatically, “If somebody is ruining their brand with a trillion dollar coin idea, I don’t think it’s the non-economist,” he said, adding, “I stand by our research on the topic, the due diligence and my ignorant conclusion that a trillion dollar coin minted to allow the president to circumvent the debt ceiling – however arbitrary that may be – is a stupid f---ing idea,” Stewart said. “I said, good day. And I’m a fan of Paul Krugman.”