Posted on 06/18/2009 2:06:17 PM PDT by Kartographer
MILAN, June 18 (Reuters) - Italy has asked U.S. authorities to check the authenticity of what appear to be U.S. government bonds worth $134 billion seized near the Swiss border, a senior Italian tax police officer said on Thursday.
Early in June, Italy's Guardia di Finanza, or tax police, said they had seized the U.S. bonds from two Japanese nationals at the Chiasso rail station in the north of Italy close to the frontier with Switzerland.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Old old news and multiple posts
“the holders could face a fine of 40 percent of their value”
nice work if you can get it
What’s new is the fact that Rooters finally mentioned it after all this time.
not a bad little bonus for italy if the bonds are real.
40% of $134b == $54b
this alone would be 3% of their GDP (normally $1.8 trillion)
"In the last two years, $800 million of U.S. bonds have been seized in the Como area."
I'm surprised that hasn't made news before this. $800 million in bonds isn't an insignificant number.
And, there's nothing like adding a little scale to put things in perspective...
"Despite the potentially huge scale of the seizure, the amount remains small compared to the $2 trillion worth of new debt the U.S. Treasury is expected to issue in the fiscal year to Sept 20"
The US owes other people countries an unfathomable amount of money, considering $134 billion is being characterized as "rather small".
"Whatever the truth behind the bearer bond arrests , we know it doesn’t bode well for America’s economic future. At best, it demonstrates that the US faces economic sabotage from an (as yet) unknown source. At worst, it’s evidence of underhand behaviour by US authorities to finance the country’s spiraling debt problem."
The amount seized should ring alarm bells. On March 30 2009, the Treasury Department announced that $134.5 billion remained in the TARP. The stated amount of seized bearer bonds was $134.5 billion.
How the Bearer Bonds Saga Could Bring Down the US
Sheesh. You'd think the US Treasury would have been there within 24hours.
“Clearly fakes” indicates I am watching a Peter sellers movie. I don’t buy it. Illegitimate maybe...
If they’re fakes, it’s a nice way to trash the US dollar.
“Old old news and multiple posts”
succinct (and completely uninformative)
the “clearly fake” is from a US Bureau of the Public Debt spokesman. Neither he nor anyone else from there has seen them. His view is based on the description in the press, I suspect. It is a reflex reaction to support the dollar.
The SEC has been given the bonds for verification. (or facsimilies, perhaps, initially). The Italiam authorities will be the ones to announce the official finding, not some PR flack working for the Hussein/Madoff ponzi scheme tha is US Treasury Debt.
I collect currency, stocks and bonds. I would make a small wager that they are fake, probably from N. Korea where they make the “Supernote” 100’s. We know the Swiss Company that sold them the press they use and we know what building it’s in. Why we don’t hit it with a Tomahawk missile is beyond me. There’s only 3 countries that even have that much in US bonds. Unless, of course, some were sold “under the table” for a little “off the books” financing. [sarcasm] But the US Government would never do anything like that [/sarcasm]. They should be able to tell the history of those bonds from when they were printed by the serial numbers and their status as counterfeits should be revealed soon. Of course, if this story “goes away” then you know something bad and criminal went on and is being covered up.
“the “clearly fake” is from a US Bureau of the Public Debt spokesman. Neither he nor anyone else from there has seen them. His view is based on the description in the press, I suspect. It is a reflex reaction to support the dollar.”
Ah yes, the birth certificate ploy. (sorry, it seemed apropos)
“If they’re fakes, it’s a nice way to trash the US dollar.”
If they are counterfeit (and my “Guess-A” was Japan trying to unload US assets), then it raises a whole new set of questions - who are these two Japanese guys and how dumb are they?
If you’re going to counterfeit something that would raise eyebrows, you’d better know enough to make it plausible. They didn’t really think they were going to unload them on someone who wasn’t going to authenticate them, did they? And if so, whom?
If this is not some kind of publicity stunt, or these guys are not lunatics, then it gets curiouser and curiouser...
“Guess-B” is with you. Somebody trying to trash the dollar, and not too many candidates for that stunt either.
It raises the question - is this some kind of signal that there are other counterfeit securities out there, less blatant and not as easily detected?
This might turn out to be the most important and under-reported story of the year.
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