Treasury to travel to Mnuchin land

A former Wall Street banker and current hedge fund head is expected to be named by President-elect Donald Trump to the post of Treasury secretary.

Steven Mnuchin seems to have a fairly typical resume compared to recent holders of the post.

In fact, he has the endorsement of the last Republican holder of the office, Henry M. “Hank” Paulson Jr.

What does this mean for the future?

Besides seeing his facsimile signature on the nation’s Federal Reserve Notes, there is little to go on as far as other numismatic-related areas are concerned.

Mnuchin is founder and CEO of Dune Capital Management.

He had spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, starting as a trader.

He was the Trump campaign’s national finance chairman.

Here are three links that came up in my Google search to tell you more about him. CNBCNew York TimesNPR

The new President’s primary financial goals are tax cuts and infrastructure spending.

Unless a proposal to sell or privatize the United States Mint appears as the Dutch have done with their mint in recent days, the impact of his tenure on coin collecting will likely hinge on other appointments down the administrative chain.

A new Mint director would have more direct impact.

Until then it is probably best to conclude that it will be steady as she goes.

Successful growth policies will likely lead to more circulating coin output while failure and recession would lead to less.

How about gold and silver?

Traders in that market will be evaluating the usual mix of interest rates, budget deficits and the growth rate in the economy.

They will also be looking for signs of economic success or failure.

The 2008 financial crisis at first depressed gold but then its price rose along with quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve.

Today’s price of $1,179.70 an ounce for gold and $16.59 for silver are reassuring. They show little change from yesterday.

Wider swings could be expected should something positive or negative emerge from the Treasury secretary-designate’s background.

We will all be watching.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."