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'Illegal' Treasuries: Could They Happen and Who Would Buy Them?
The Atlantic ^ | 04/22/2011 | The Atlantic

Posted on 04/22/2011 6:06:31 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour

Would you buy a bond guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States if its existence also breached U.S. law? This seemingly crazy concept might sound ridiculous, but bizarre times may call for bizarre measures. As a result, this week, Citi analyst Brett Rose (via Business Insider) suggested that the Treasury could resort to an unlikely worst-case scenario: it could just issue more Treasury securities in violation of the law.

Could This Really Happen?

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: bonds; brettrose; citi; treasurysecurities

1 posted on 04/22/2011 6:06:32 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

If Tim Geitner wants to go to jail it could.


2 posted on 04/22/2011 6:09:01 PM PDT by spyone (ridiculum)
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To: spyone

Counterfeiting is counterfeiting ~ you can make the real thing, and it’s counterfeit if you don’t have the authority to make it.


3 posted on 04/22/2011 6:12:52 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

I would have no problem at all with defaulting on such a security. If they were issued without authority, it would be exactly like a check written on my account but without my permission. Anyone stupid enough to buy it deserves what he gets (or doesn’t get), including, if he’s lucky, repayment without interest after a few years or decades of litigation.


4 posted on 04/22/2011 6:13:38 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)
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To: spyone

He has not been jailed yet.. This is all beyond me, personally outside of my expertise. It is a sad day in this country when you need a crash course on economics because you cannot trust the Fed and the absent leadership. Seriously, is there any end to the desperate, illegal and immoral things the Fed and Co. will do to accomplish their agenda? What the heck is their agenda anyway.. Soros’ push for World currency?


5 posted on 04/22/2011 6:14:59 PM PDT by momincombatboots (In a few months I will be Ore..Gone! Look out Crater Lake, here we come!)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

basically, deflate the treasuries

how people cannot see this whole process as a looting of America’s financial wealth is beyond me


6 posted on 04/22/2011 6:15:09 PM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

“Could This Really Happen?”

Sure—if the pos poser in chief says “to make it so”. After all, he won.


7 posted on 04/22/2011 6:20:34 PM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like what you say))
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To: freeangel
the Treasury could resort to an unlikely worst-case scenario: it could just issue more Treasury securities in violation of the law."

I have no knowledge of such things. However, merely being informed that it is possible, in my opinion nearly ensures that it's already being done.

8 posted on 04/22/2011 6:31:57 PM PDT by PENANCE
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

Many other strange things have happened: ‘quantitative easing’, selective enforcement of laws, outright ignoring other laws, ignoring court rulings at whim, taking states to court for enforcing laws when the federal government is delinquent in its own responsibility, contempt for even questioning questionable natural born citizenship. With all that, even though it’s blatant trickery (fraud?), I could see it as a possibility. Again, as someone above said, caveat emptor. Hardly a proud day for America if it happens. And more work to do later to clean up the mess.


9 posted on 04/22/2011 6:38:39 PM PDT by OldNewYork (social justice isn't justice; it's just socialism)
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To: spyone

Tim Geithner will go to jail when George Soros does.


10 posted on 04/22/2011 6:39:34 PM PDT by cradle of freedom (Long live the Republic !)
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To: momincombatboots

The Fed scam has been going on since 1913 or 1916.

It seems that the scam was tried during the days of Andrew Jackson who was a determined enemy of the bank of the USA. Nicholas Biddle the head of the US Bank said that he would bring down the United States before he would end the bank.

Doesn’t that sound like something that you would hear from the mouth of George Soros?


11 posted on 04/22/2011 6:44:37 PM PDT by cradle of freedom (Long live the Republic !)
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To: The Magical Mischief Tour

I wouldn’t buy a US Tbill if Jesus Christ was selling them.


12 posted on 04/22/2011 7:02:12 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: OldNewYork

I think some variation of this has been going on for several years now. The Federal Reserve stopped reporting the M3 measure of money supply back in the mid-2000s, and a couple of years after that I began seeing small, innocuous stories about large real estate deals in the Middle East (mainly Dubai) that were financed entirely with large quantities of U.S. cash. The speculation I saw at the time was that the U.S. government was supplementing the war effort in Iraq with a strategy of using bags of cash that had been printed “off the books” to bribe tribal leaders and pay U.S. contractors in Iraq.


13 posted on 04/22/2011 7:30:50 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested.")
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To: muawiyah

“Would you buy a bond guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States if its existence also breached U.S. law?”

The real question isn’t whether you would, or whether I or any other investor would. It’s whether or not the Federal Reserve will...


14 posted on 04/22/2011 7:44:47 PM PDT by Gunslingr3
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To: Alberta's Child

That’s really interesting. I’d like to know more about it. It would make it easier to understand the trunkloads of cash, literal trunkloads, being hauled around Afghanistan. And I’m not just talking about Karzai’s buddy’s suitcase malfunction at the airport.

I suppose that’s the risk with fiat currency, with any faith-based system: the priests telling you what to believe, how much to value, have to be trustworthy.

As for me, I’m watching my silver dimes stay the same size but somehow grow.


15 posted on 04/22/2011 7:46:32 PM PDT by OldNewYork (social justice isn't justice; it's just socialism)
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To: OldNewYork

It was the oddest thing . . . no fanfare, no big deal, no nothing. Just a couple of minor “blurb” stories in a real estate publication about Dubai’s building boom a couple of years ago. It was right around the time oil spiked to $140+ per barrel, and I immediately attributed that spike to a massive flood of U.S. dollars around the world as part of a quasi-official counterfeiting program aimed at financing the war effort off the books.


16 posted on 04/22/2011 7:58:26 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested.")
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To: Georgia Girl 2

I was just thinking I wouldn’t touch an authorized T-bill, let alone one of these. Either one is a TP-bill in my mind.


17 posted on 04/22/2011 8:39:07 PM PDT by Trod Upon (Obama: Making the Carter malaise look good. Misery Index in 3...2...1)
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To: Alberta's Child

Even before we entered Iraq, no more than a third of the printed physical US dollars (by value) in the world was being circulated in the United States.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/1996/1096lead.pdf

At this point with nearly a trillion in pysical circulation, I’m not sure anyone but a few policy wonks in the Fed know a reliable estimate, again as you pointed out, that’s why they stopped reporting the M3.


18 posted on 04/22/2011 10:25:43 PM PDT by JerseyHighlander
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