Posted on 06/11/2009 2:07:42 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
Nothing to worry about.
Obama has already destroyed the bond market.
Just ask the GM bondholders what they think.
Yea, that caught my eye too.
To be fair, the Fed was rumored last December to be considering selling their own bonds. But the idea brought forward so much controversy that the Fed appeared to drop it.
Fake
There are no such half billion dollar securities
They might have been taken to Switzerland to try and use as collateral on a trading account
Pure speculation, but maybe North Korea is involved?
They both try and counterfeit US money, and through selling drugs, etc.,. must reap in huge sums.
With the succession in N. Korea in doubt, and with war a possibility, any number of individuals in the ruling circles there might want to hedge their best and move their loot.
I have never seen a physical long bond, only the short ones. I know that the short bonds only come in denominations as high as $1 million.
But, when countries like China hold almost a trillion dollars, and Japan well over a half trillion dollars in long bonds, is it not possible that there's denominations greater than $1 million?
It seems very far-fetched to me as well, but who knows.
Look very carefully at the bottom right corner. If it says, “Printed in the DRNK”, chances are they are fakes. If they are signed by Kim Jun Il, that’s a dead give away.
Here’s a few ways to interpret that, in order of decreasing probability and increasing hilarity:
1. The reporter and editor are so clueless as to let such an obvious mistake make it to publication.
2. The report is accurate because the counterfeiters were so dumb they wrote the wrong thing on the papers.
3. The Federal Reserve covertly worked with Asian governments to secretly issue Fed-Bonds to bypass Congressional authorization and bungled the thing Inspector Cluseau style.
Actually, the whole mix of events - from massive numbers of bearer bonds to the unprofessional manner of movement to the apparently Japanese nationals - sounds more like a North Korean counterfeiting operation than anything else. If so, I hope the other deliveries that we didn’t catch are obvious forgeries.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2269335/posts?page=178#178
Not sure if the story is fake or accurate. There are definately scammers out there with fake $500 million treasury bonds, so it could be accurate in that sense. The scammers use these bonds as loan collateral, or margin for trading calls. It is amazing that some banks will take them.
If anyone has a magnifying glass, let me know if they read "United States of Amelica Tleasuly Bond"
North Korea seems likely. They have used Japanese nationals for espionage. They have engaged in counterfeiting US instruments in the past.
If they are issued by Obama they are definitely fake. Us money is currently not worth anything and the US government is the biggest counterfeiter on the planet.
In addition, these can be traded between other countries without ever having to come back to the US. That’s why counterfeit $100 bills worked just as well as the real ones in places like Uzbekistan and Myanmar until someone wanted to buy US goods.
Well, the first thing that makes this story dubious is that US Treasury bonds (30-year bonds) quit being issued as bearer bonds on paper in 1982. That means that the holder would have to have accumulated quite the stash of these from the early 80’s - and a limited set of years: 1980, 1981, 1982.
But the 30-year was most heavily issued from 1977 until the 30-year was pulled from offering at all by the Clinton administration, who “compressed” the US debt into the shorter end of the curve.
OK, so how much bearer bond debt was out there? The best indication I can give you comes from the Depository Trust Company. In 1991, they had 600 people clipping coupons on bonds held by the DTC in trust for their owners and mailing in the coupons - on about 21 million bonds. As of today, the number of bearer bonds still valid and on deposit with the DTC is about 700,000 and the face amount is about $3.5 billion (and dropping rapidly). So that gives you an idea of the relative rate of drop-off of the instruments among people who are above-board and legit.
Further, when you send in a coupon to get your payment on the debt, or you send in the bond to recover the face value, the US Treasury takes down all manner of financial ID for US citizens. The only way you’re going to make one of these bonds good is to take it to a bank that is willing to present it to the US Treasury without invoking your name as the true owner.
And here, I think I’ve found the US Treasury’s report on the bearer debt outstanding:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_bearregsec.pdf
There isn’t (according to the Treasury) enough bearer debt outstanding to meet the figures in the press.
As to not breaking up the shipment: See above. They amount they have is close to, or above, the total amount of US Treasury Bearer debt left outstanding from the period in which it was issued. There isn’t enough paper outstanding.
Paper certs of non-paper or registered bearer bonds are like transporting your tax returns from 10 years ago. Why bother?
BTW — here’s what a real bearer bond looks like:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_07Vo5mDNg18/SjG0o3s-hAI/AAAAAAAAACw/qZFWJmppPak/s1600-h/bond1small.jpg
The interest “coupons” on the bottom of the bond would be clipped off and sent in to receive payment, hence the missing coupons on the left.
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