Fascinating story.
Ping.
In 2002 Don Johnson of Miami Vice was caught with $8 BILLION in securities?????? YIKES...I do not recall hearing about that....is it true?? What happened to him?
Driving from Italy to Switzerland has been a piece of cake for decades. This must have been tipped.
The billion dollar question is "counterfeit or real?" If they are real, then someone big is secretly abandoning the dollar and that is very bad news for us. It's like smelling smoke in a theater and trying to walk quietly to the fire escape because yelling "FIRE!" might get you trampled.
Biggest story of the year. Too bad the MSM is in the pocket of dems - this stroy will break what little credibility they have left.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Here is another interesting article on this subject. Note the strange coincidence that the $134.5 Billion just happens to EXACTLY match the $134.5 Billion the Treasury department reported was left in the TARP a few weeks ago!
This is a huge story in Europe and Asia, but hardly gets any notice in our State Run Media here. I wonder why?
These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors. It makes you wonder if some of the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spends keeping the Chinese and Japanese invested in dollars should be devoted to well-financed men crossing the Italian-Swiss border.
Didn't these guys watch The French Connection to know of hollow car doors and the infamous "rocker panels"? With $134B on the line, Daniel Craig in a bristlingly-armed Aston Martin would have been far more appropriate. OTOH, maybe the Carabinieri need to check the rocker panels and side doors.
Gratuitous Carabinieri joke:
Q: How does one sink a Carabinieri submarine?
A: Swim down and knock on the hatch.
HF
“...At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale...”
We may have already lost control
Amazing-
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1119-The-Saga-Of-The-Bearer-Bonds.html
So let’s assume that the certificates are real, as German media seems to believe and which, by the way, makes logical sense given what they were and the sheer impossibility of cashing a fake $500 million bond.”
“Ok, who has $130 billion in bearer bonds? Remember, bearer instruments haven’t been issued by the Treasury since 1982, when they became illegal to issue, at least to US institutions and residents (there was an exception carved out for Treasury instruments issued to non-US residents in 1985 - a time of high deficits) The answer to that question: it is rather unlikely that there remains $130 billion of legitimate US Bearer issuance outstanding anywhere - to anyone.”
—
“So what remains? Let’s run a theory here - one of the few possible remaining options, given the exclusion of what we know not to be true...
Are we willing to assume that all the “issue” of Treasury bonds has been done “above board” as required by law. If Treasury has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years, then the following is about to occur”
Yeah, should of hired “The Transporter” he would have got it over the border.
As noted, anybody buying a billion dollar bond sure as hell is going to get it validated by the US Treasury Dept. Not going to happen any other way. So they are real
Our government’s silence on it gives me the impression they are involved.
If so sounds like some people should be going to jail
Just a couple of rich Japanese looking for a safe place to keep their money. Couldn’t find one in Italy so headed to Switzerland. Germany would have been next.
Move along, move along please.
A couple of Japanese guys wanted to move 134 Billion to Switzerland and rather than chartering a private jet to fly directly to their destination, they took a commercial flight to Italy and rented a car, so as to save money?
Would they have been searched all that hard arriving in Switzerland by private charter?
While I’m at it, I might as well ask those of you who have increased my understanding of macroeconomics what your take is on this.
Wow.
Need to follow this some more