Stacy Summary: Somehow the news anchor’s delivery of this public service announcement just seems so perfect for this story. Just keep moving on, folks. Nothing to see here.
Stacy: This just in from @gina:
Stacy: This is very strange if true. There is only this one reference to the story on google news. Another batch of ‘fake’ bonds crossing the border at same point? What the heck is up? Economic war from North Korea? Someone is trying to get attention it seems.
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whats being forgotten in all this is the usa dollar is becoming worhtless. Actually it already is. So the folks with bonds are trying as best as they can to dump them before the whole usa dollar system collapses.
God $@#)ing damnit, these bonds are real, i know it.
The last sentence of this article published by the Canada Free Press sums it all up: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12123
Show us the money. It will take more then an audit of the fed, it will take an audit of the world. But there’s no one qualified or trustworthy enough to do this. Everyone is a book chef when it boils down to this mass of Foie Gras.
let the celebrity chefs cook us our scimply proportional meals of bull….
Another 20 billion! Fake of course! That almost goes without saying.
After all, just because you are smart enough to forge bonds doesn’t mean that you would expect billion dollar denominations to raise an eyebrow when cashed or deposited. That is why you will find most money forgers like billion dollar bills, you get a much bigger return for using less paper and ink. Fake bonds? What forger would waste his time? What smuggler would try to pass off billion dollar bonds?
I would never believe these bonds are fake! There are many reasons governments or banks would want to move bonds illegally. Too bad we’ll never know the truth, because we can’t stand the truth you know.
Just a thought.
What if there is a smear campaign against Switzerland, against the safe haven of money.
What if it is the US government trying to create mistrust to US bonds bought from other sources then the US government itself? Geithner wants to sell new $104 billion worth of bonds I read in newspapers today, wouldn’t he prefer that people or states would buy his brand new printed bonds instead of older and maybe unsafe…?bonds from other people or governments? With the knowledge of huge fake bonds in the marked, wouldn’t you trust Geithner instead…moahahah!!
A pretty good article here:-
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14011
The retreat of the shadow lenders has created a credit freeze globally; and when credit shrinks, the money supply shrinks with it. That means there is insufficient money to buy goods, so workers get laid off and factories get shut down, perpetuating a vicious spiral of economic collapse and depression. To reverse that cycle, credit needs to be restored; and when the banks can’t do it, the Fed needs to step in and start “monetizing” debt.
So why don’t Fed officials just say that is what they are up to and put our minds at ease? Probably because they can’t without exposing the whole banking game. The curtain would be thrown back and we the people would know that our money system is sleight of hand. The banks never had all that money they supposedly lent to us. We’ve been paying interest for something they created out of thin air! Indeed, their credit money is less substantial than air, which at least has some molecules bouncing around in it. Bank credit exists only in cyberspace……………..
If Ben Bernanke stands by his word and refuses to monetize the federal debt, Congress should consider issuing the money itself, as the U.S. Constitution provides. The “full faith and credit of the United States” is an asset of the United States, and it should properly be issued and lent by the United States rather than by unaccountable private banks and shadow lenders. The true path to economic recovery – the path from an economy strangled in debt to one blooming in prosperity – is to reclaim money and credit as public resources, transforming money from private master to public servant.
Hi all
@ Mike re:name…. no-one seems to be taking any notice of you. I thought of “The S&M Gang” – for Stacy & Max, of course, but with all the talk of wage slaves and bonds we might attract the wrong crowd! Sorry
The fake bonds make no sense – but I can’t work it out either. Mind you the anchor lady isn’t lying – it’s all fake anyway. Maybe she means fake fake bonds.
Releasing all the MPs expenses online is a great distracting tool.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8106044.stm
While people are trawling their MP’s receipts for tiny (relative) amounts of pilfering, they are missing the multi-billion (insert appropriate fiat currency) Kleptocracy scandal.
On the edge is such an appropriate title. It’s a balancing act every day finding the truth without dipping into the insane, of which the web has plenty. Oh yes. Keep the the good work Max/Stacy.
Classifying the bonds as fake…is a good way to reduce debt…dont you think?
OT: Buy/Rent Calculator
WSJ: Is it better to buy or rent ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=2&ref=patrick.net
Looks to me like another attempt to get people to start buying property again . Notice the source : Moody’ Economy.com.
Of course, they don’t allow for yearly maintenance costs that the house-owner has to pay in order to keep the property marketable ; just annual property tax.
The Input fields , especially “Down payment” are quaint.
The “Down payment” fields has a massive effect on the Interest that you pay to the bank over 30 years for example.
In Germany for example, the house prices have remained pretty stagnant since the 1970′s – with the exclusion of bubble areas like the 5 main Cities.
With 10% down payment and “normal” interest rates of ca. 5% , you roughly pay back the original house-price + 2x the house-price in Interest to the banks.
e.g. you buy a house for 200K Euros, and at the end of 30 years, you’ve paid ca. 600K Euros on your mortgage.
Mother
This is what your need to do to join:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uw2bqlxJX4
Mike
It appears these bearer bonds are quite liquid but somehow easy to detect..Is Italy cracking down on a known black market corridor?
@mike Our secret group should be called, eh, I guess I’ll keep that a secret..I do like the feds ‘Maiden Lane’ choice of name, quite poetic and very The Firm.. How about ‘Azur Tranquility Inc.’, ‘Medusa Snake Society’ ,’Trinity Pitchfork Enthousiasts’ ?
Or ‘The Institute for Acvanced personhood’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4b2QNnVrY0
@Mother Earth
Yep, and the other yellow socks with purple dots.
Here some of those crazy Japs in real live action.
FUNNY JAPANESE PRANKS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS1XdySVvqs
CRAZY Japanese Ski Prank!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGLhim0XqA
@alister
WHAT!
@DharmaBum
…but can you really condemn, from a medium-long term perspective, the outcomes of Mao Zedong’s action…?
Strange Inconsistencies in the $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery (Seeking Alpha) http://seekingalpha.com/article/143462-strange-inconsistencies-in-the-134-5-billion-bearer-bond-mystery?source=article_sb_popular
@Youri .. “If it was state organized the could well have been using their diplomatic immunity ”
I agree … diplomatic passports are two-a-penny, especially in African states BTW. So it would seem that they actually “wanted” to get caught !
Hmmm … I wonder who that ( nation ) could have been ?
A Bilderberg plot ?
Did he wear purple socks?
@Phil
Good well be. I also thing this “fake” bonds story is a cover up but not completely impossible. Double bottom bag looks kinda clumsy and not profi since secret services have complete cars with all kinds of hidden compartments.
If it was state organized the could well have been using their diplomatic immunity post to get things smuggled over the border even by plane which they do all the time.
OFF TOPIC ..
Excellent 3D Map of the markets
http://finviz.com/map3d.ashx
( Move the mouse over the stock real-estate to see a detailed graph )
Deek keeping us up-to-date…
FKN NEWZ : ALIEN VISITORS LAFF AT US
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVaFE_qTAcI
FWIW
@Bonds … original link here …
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/420590-marli/8420-did-the-japanese-try-to-dump-135-billion-in-us-bonds-on-the-black-market
Probably posted here a few days ago .. sorry for double.
@Bonds … Good Read here from Precious Metals board :
http://www.investorvillage.com/iv2/smbd.asp?mb=144&mn=25818&pt=msg&mid=7452444
A small piece from the end …
… ” The evidence as of this writing strongly suggests that a major Central Bank, most likely the Japanese, attempted to liquidate $134.5 billion dollars in US government debt on the black market, at what would have to be a deep discount. The ‘Italian Incident’ is perhaps the biggest news story never to hit the front page. “…
geopol stated, “One of the quickest ways to sabotage and usher in the death of a currency is to raise legitimate questions about its ability to withstand counterfeiting efforts. Prove that counterfeiting is not only possible but highly likely, and the world’s confidence in the sabotaged currency will undoubtedly plummet.”
Check this out…$5 bills being altered to appear as $100 bills…
http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=313090
I’m No expert, but… I think the thing about counterfeiting is it is very expensive to get set up. However once set up, it is very cheap and easy to produce your product, (the cost of expensive inks & paper). So why counterfeit a denomination that is so ridiculously high it is sure to attract attention? it would seam to make a lot more sense to counterfeit 1m$ bonds and keep the presses going day and night & pass them around the world rather then trying to move this unreasonably huge sum? If they were counterfeit why not just fedex them with a bunch of other paperwork to switzerland? who cares if they get lost, just print some more.
Now, after keeping mum on the story for a week they (THE media) finally break the code of silence only to say:
there was no story; the 136.5bn in bonds that we didn’t bother to report on are in fact, fake bonds, therefore we were right in not saying anything about this at all.
“Ok, from now on Im not going to lie anymore, from now on Im only going to say things that are true, trust me…”
BTW the email address for the guy who wrote the bloomburg story is:
[email protected]
Give him your comments too.
Live Discussion: The Dollar, Inflation and Protecting Your Portfolio Seeking Alpha: http://seekingalpha.com/article/143495-live-discussion-the-dollar-inflation-and-protecting-your-portfolio?source=email
Clicks on box to paste link. Thinks “I better write something”.Grabs keyboard off of desk. Watches reciepts flutter to the floor. Wonders if self will need any of those reciepts come next tax season. Wonders if there will be a next tax season? Types–
Clusterfuck Nation? Are we too stupid to survive?
(Feels self-satisfied for such an intriguing description…)
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/06/too-stupid-to-survive.html#more
Belches and puts keyboard away…
Mafia blamed for $134bn fake Treasury bills: Italian and US secret services concluded that $134bn in US Treasury.. http://tinyurl.com/nnjprl
China cuts US Treasury bond holdings by $4.4 billion http://tinyurl.com/nz4bce
This quote is all over the net but not here.
“…And interestingly, from Reuters, is this: “U.S. TIC data show that during the 12 months ending January 2007, Japanese investors bought just $18.2 billion in Treasury coupons, or approximately $1.5 billion a month, a sharp contrast from the 12 months ending January 2005 when Japanese investors purchased $134.5 billion of U.S. government debt, McCarthy noted.”
Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: William Pesek – Bloomberg.com http://tinyurl.com/mdwkqp
I know for a fact that a non suspicious way of transporting huge amounts of money is to keep an extreme low profile. For example you have a lot of money in a cash & carry plastic bag. Nobody will suspect that you are carrying large amounts of money. I know for a fact from a interview with people who where money carriers around town.
I agree. The silence on this event is numbing. What doesn’t the government want us to know.
The big media ought to be taken off the air. They’re total bullsheet anymore.
So the authorities just destroy the bonds because they are for fake.
Ahh, they aren’t fake. If they were fake they would have been checked out when delivered to who they were going to to cash in.
Is the media a total bullsheet organization now.
It looks like ‘the powers that be’ finally sent the memo to Bloomberg. God knows every other media outlet got the memo promptly following the incident. It is odd that Bloomberg got to mention it twice before they were brought into line.
You are correct Stacy the tone is definitely ‘nothing here folks. This is over. It was just a little scam, move on!
We know different of course but this means that this story has been withdrawn from public scrutiny. If the truth were out the dollar may be seen for what it is really worth. So its back to Disneyworld USA. How long can they play this?
Is that a “Japanese national” anouncer? Nice touch.
Well look, maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but the fact of the matter is it took them far too long to verify the bonds, they’ve been concealing the identities of the perpetrators, and the dollar appears as though it might implode, supporting the idea that some state would want to dump dollars quickly in a huge private transaction. Enough there for me to file it away as unsolved and intriguing, but no conclusions drawn.
It doesn’t have to make sense. People don’t want to know the truth. They want comfort they can call truth.
The Kennedy Bearer bonds had a face value of $1 billion dollars each. That’s so outrageous an amount that the bonds have to be fake, right? The Treasury should know that they never issued such denominations of Kennedy-Series Bearers. Even if they did, they would know exactly to whom they belong.
No – any fool could print up some fake bonds they whip up in Photoshop and attempt to transport them across national boundaries as a kind of test, or a way to plant a fake story in the news, to shake confidence in US Bonds. It’s a kind of espionage, a way to attack a nation’s currency and debt.
But the question is, if the bonds are counterfeit, what is the identity of the two Japanese nationals? Should not that information be made public immediately, if the bonds are indeed fakes, or if there is even a possibility that this is so?
One point worth considering: Japan and Italy were 2 of the 3 Axis Powers in WWII. There was a relationship there. Perhaps it is still intact?
Let’s consider the alternative. What if they bonds are not fake, but were issued in secret by the US Federal Reserve? We may have just gotten a glimpse into the workings of the shadow banking system. The Fed could be the counterfeiter here, and the total outstanding debt of the United States may well be far in excess of what is reported, possibly closer to hundreds of trillions of dollars, or enough to bury 10 generations of every American.
Bearer Bonds……..Yeah Mate ..got sacks of em out the back…..How many you want then?…
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320379387873
There should be little debate that the world’s emerging economies in Russia, Brazil, China and certain Gulf Nations are at economic war today with the world’s Western nations and their economic allies. The currency war being fought today is sure to get much uglier in the foreseeable future, in both open tactics as well as secretly executed tactics. Currently, if the currency war were the world series of poker, the US and the UK would be holding a pair of 2s and relying on nothing but bluffs to keep the rest of the world at bay. Conversely, the Chinese and other emerging nations with large surpluses would be holding straight or royal flushes, and likely quietly maneuvering to go “all in” at some point.
Given that the discovery of $134.5 billion of bearer bonds in the suitcases of two Japanese nationals in Chiasso, Italy on the border of Switzerland qualifies as one of the largest smuggling operations in history, and given the various implications of such an act and the possible players involved, the silence regarding this huge story is simply stunning.
Didn’t they say the same thing last time something like this happened in 2004:
23 billion / Iraq
No, according to some asian reports a japanese journalist was sent to italy and was told the two suspects were released, the reason still unknown.
You don’t release fraudsters, unless they arent really fraudsters..
This is far from a done deal in any way. This story has more holes in it than all Woody Woodpecker cartoons ever did. Notice the the couching of language each(“most probably”…”believed the bonds were fake”) time they are described as fake. I love this line too ““We don’t know where they are now,” Mr Akamatsu said. This coverage is ridiculous. It all leads back to either Max’s theory or the three point doom scenario.
“1. The Japanese are trying to secretly divest themselves of about 25% of their US debt. (They own about $600B in US debt.)
2. The Japanese are acting as Chinese or North Korean agents in trying to help them divest themselves of US debt in secret.
3. There is an enormous sum of counterfeit US debt out there and these guys are trying to sell some of it.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82091ec2-5c2f-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html
One more funny thing about the Treasury’s reaction. If you look at an earlier Fox News report on this story, (where Fox interviews a young scruffy blogger guy) Fox says they contacted the Treasury who said: “Those bonds are part of a criminal investigation so we can’t comment on them”. Note: “those bonds” not “those worthless papers”. Apparently two days later they had no problem commenting on them. Note also that their most recent denial was based on looking a pictures on the web, which gives them plausible deniability in the future if the bonds turn out to be real. They can just say “well we never had a good look at them when we said they are fake”.
Now I think the main question is: what about the couriers? Will they be prosecuted. If so then these bonds are evidence and probably will have to be stored in some (low security) italian police station for a long time, maybe even after the trial. The way we’ll know for sure that their fake is if there’s no armed guards surrounding the bonds. (The fact that the curriers had no such guards also suggests however that they are fake)
@Youri, I just think NK is wacky enough to try this. Could be russian oligarchs or someone else with a negative USD$ position. (like Max!)
“A bearer bond is a debt security issued by a business entity, such as a corporation, or by a government. It differs from the more common types of investment securities in that it is unregistered – no records are kept of the owner, or the transactions involving ownership. Whoever physically holds the paper on which the bond is issued owns the instrument.
This is useful for investors who wish to retain anonymity. The downside is that in the event of loss or theft, bearer bonds are extremely difficult to recover.”
If you recall the Michael Mann movie “Heat”, starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, during a daring daytime armored car robbery, the criminals specifically targeted millions of dollars of bearer bonds for theft precisely because of the above qualities of bearer bonds that make them very difficult to trace. Again, due to the properties of bearer bonds, it seems highly unlikely that $134.5 billion of bearer bonds would be transported, if they were real, by two men with no security, since theft almost guarantees that they would be lost forever.
Thus far, about the only piece of information that appears to be reliable as reported by various news sources regarding this huge mystery is the remarkable authenticity of the 249 seized bearer bonds in denominations of USD $500 million. If any of the other facts, as they are being reported, are remotely accurate, then the bearer bonds were likely counterfeit. Still, the interesting part of this story, at least to me, is that the smugglers seemed intent on being caught with the counterfeit bonds. This leads me back to my previous question. What possible reason would the smugglers have for wanting to be caught? One of the quickest ways to sabotage and usher in the death of a currency is to raise legitimate questions about its ability to withstand counterfeiting efforts. Prove that counterfeiting is not only possible but highly likely, and the world’s confidence in the sabotaged currency will undoubtedly plummet.
On March 30, 2009, the US Treasury Department announced that USD $134.5 billion remained in its Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]. The stated amount of seized bearer bonds was $134.5 billion. Coincidence?
You would think the US press would want to discover the alleged counterfeiters motives and get to the bottom of the story. But no-o-o. They’re fake – end of story. Ha-ha.
They don’t even have the “details on who the alleged smugglers are”… chuckle, smirk. Are we supposed to believe the whole thing was a huge practical joke? At least a few days ago we knew they were Japanese or at least using Japanese passports, but now we don’t even know that detail. You have to hand it to the Ministry of Truth for doing a great job on this story.
I used to think those James Bond movies were implausible, because how could there be so much public killing an destruction without the press questioning what happened? But as this incident shows the press will buy any cover story offered by the government without questioning it – even when hundreds of billions of dollars are involved.
Oh Shit:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/8108434.stm
This will put the BNP onto its front foot!
British Jobs for British workers.
Mike
Wait ! Wait a minute! I get it, they are “fake” so that magically disappears the debt to the bonds, and the bond holder, right?
How convenient to the fed, they get the “extra” funds and walk away with yet another sweet hand at the table.
Fake! I don’t believe it. Notice the body language that main streamers use when “selling” the story. A smirk, a roll of the eyes says it all. “nothing to see here people move along”
PROBLEM REACTION SOLUTION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29C_KNZ7RNs
I dont buy it for a second. It is in the best interest for Amerca and the nation who owns the bonds to go with the forgery story for political and economic reasons.
She says the treasury said they are fake. Of course they can have agreed to say thatm while replacing the bonds for new iones to the real owner. Np reason for the US to go through tthe hassel of the 40% the italians have a right to. It may even be that italy decided to intercept these bonds as a repayment for the fake securities sold to them..
@Chris
OK, now the N.Koreans did all of the evil all of a sudd’n? Maybe they where behind the banking crises too.
Chris, that’s and interesting idea. Certainly N. Korea makes those counterfeit $100 bills that even fool banks. So they have the capability, it seems.
Still can’t think of a name for our group………”The Hoilday Inn group”….Nope
Mike
One thing that’s odd that the the Italian Financial Police, (who are top notch being halfway between Switzerland and the Mafia,) were unable, upon close examination, to determine if the bonds were fake, yet the US Treasury Dept. (see Bloomberg article) claims to be able to ID them as fake just by looking at low-res photos on news websites!
My current theory: Bonds were forged by N. Korea, and this is a retaliatory warning salvo after the UN Sanctions against NK following its nuclear bomb test. N Korea is mostly harmless IMHO, however their leaders are wacky enough to try something like attacking the US via its weakest link: the dollar. I have no doubt that high level talks between China and N. Korea have gone on about the death of the dollar.
Over the past six months there has been a quickening in geopolitical postering. Part in parcel with the cataclysm has been the rate at which new levels of corruption have been normalized. Here in the US, for example, police misconduct has skyrocketed-from Texas patrolmen stealing millions from blacks, to old ladies being tazered, to execution style murders of blacks in front of passerbys.–whilst the central government releases document after document lowering the bar for what constitutes terrorism. Assembling in the United States is, in fact, “low-level terrorism.”
The Fed has, as you posted Stacey, accumulated yet more power. Furthermore, Barack Obama recently introduced our new policy of preventative detentions.
Media in this country grows more insane by the day. Ever more violent and absurd video games, more urgent but less informative framing of news, and a people who have externalized nearly all authority is a recipe for hate. There awaits in the future, what elite persons refer to as, and the election of Barack Obama quelled for the time being, a “creedal passion period”–that is, a period of hastened social transformation. Evidently, this will be a top-down reattitudinization of American Life.
Welcome to the New America:
“Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”
—David Rockefeller, statement about Mao Tse-tung in The New York Times, August 10, 1973
How do they know their counterfeit? They didn’t quote an expert, did they? Also I have read that those bonds may have been issued yeras ago. Then the other question is…if they are fake who the hell will buy them? Could it be that maybe the Japanese just trying to quietly unload some bad debt?
WTF….how do we know they’re fake, oh right, they must be, because the cute talking head said so…..