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Rough translation by a softwareIn suitcase 134 billion fake bond: mystery on two Asian stopped at Chiasso ROME (22 June) - Remains fixed the mystery on two Asian pecked past June 4 to Chiasso from the revenue Officer while wanted to enter in Switzerland with in suitcase fake U.S. bonds of the value of 134 miiardi of dollars (about 100 billion euro), more or except for the gross domestic product of the New Zealand. The U.S. Treasury had not doubtful: the titles of U.S. credit for a nominal value of 134 billion dollars - 249 bond of the Federal Reserve...

ROME (AP) — Italian police arrested six people Thursday in raids on a group of suspected radical leftists who were allegedly planning a terror attack, authorities said.

With the Federal Reserve and now Bank of Japan printing massive amounts of money, billionaire investor Jim Rogers told CNBC's "Closing Bell," he is shorting U.S. government debt. "It's all artificial what's going on right now," Rogers said. "The Federal Reserve is printing money as fast as they can. The Bank of Japan said 'we're going to print unlimited money.'" He called the Fed's monetary stimulus "outrageous." All that money printing has Rogers bearish on U.S. Treasury debt. He said he's shorting government bonds and that if it's indeed the end of the 30-year bond bull market, those shorts will...

The $1 Billion Armageddon Trade Placed Against The United States Bond Market Interest-Rates / US Bonds Jul 25, 2011 By: Money Morning Jack Barnes writes : Someone dropped a bomb on the bond market Thursday - a $1 billion Armageddon trade betting the United States will lose its AAA credit rating. In one moment, an invisible trader placed a single trade that moved the most liquid debt market in the world. The massive trade wasn't placed in bonds themselves; it was placed in the futures market. The trade was for block trades of 5,370 10-year Treasury futures executed at 124-03...

Pimco Dumps All U.S. Treasury Bonds, Six Reasons Why They Got it Wrong Interest-Rates / US Bonds Mar 10, 2011 - 12:43 PM By: Mike Shedlock Pimco's Bill Gross has been dumping US government debt in favor of other alternatives including emerging-market opportunities. Looking ahead, I think it's more likely to be a bullish setup for treasuries than not. First, please consider the news. Bloomberg reports Pimco’s Gross Eliminates Government Debt From Total Return Fund Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., eliminated government-related debt from his flagship fund last month as the...

Today the Fed bought up 9.7 billion in US Treasury bonds. From what I understand of the bond market is that the Treasury issues bonds at a specific starting interest rate and gives them to the Fed and the Federal Reserve sends over cash in exchange. If there are high demands on bonds then the rate will go lower, if there are low demands on the bonds the rate goes up. Last week after the Obama tax cut deal with the Republicans, the bond market had a huge sell off which rose interest rates almost .5%. This is a big...

...In some totally and completely unrelated news, the CME Group announced today that it would begin listing and trading RAINFALL futures on November 1 of this year. Yep – you heard it right – now you can bet on whether or not it will rain and maybe make money doing it! Poor Tom Skilling (Chicago’s premier meteorologist whose every word is hung upon by grain traders from about April onward through August). Now almost as soon as he utters his forecasts, the hedge fund algorithms will be slamming the rain futures market before he even gets to go to put...

Educational video about debt monetization.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The outlook on the United States' coveted AAA credit rating remains stable, though the government's financial strength is weakening due to its support for the financial system, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday. Structural fundamentals, political stability and favorable economic prospects are supporting the stable outlook, despite rising debt ratios, Moody's said. The United States' finances have been substantially worsened by the credit crisis, recession, and government spending to address these shocks, Moody's said. "The ratios of general government debt to gross domestic product and to revenue are deteriorating sharply, and after the crisis they are...

In January the U.S. Treasurer, Rosie Rios, traveled to Dallas to join local officials at the construction site of a new convention hotel being built with money raised through Build America Bonds. The purpose was to celebrate the success of the so-called BABs, which are federally-subsidized bonds created by the 2009 stimulus package. Of course, what no one at the Dallas "celebration" pointed out is that the $388 million in BABs that the city floated with federal aid were necessary because no private developer would cough up the money for the risky project. In fact, local officials wanted to build...

It has been reported by Business Week that the US Labor Department and Treasury Department are asking for public comment on a plan to convert individuals' retirement accounts (IRAs and 401(k)s) into government sponsored annuities featuring US Government bonds. The scheme would start off as voluntary, but only makes sense -- like socialized health care -- if it becomes mandatory and universal. In essence the government is asking if we would mind if they nationalized our money in return for a promise of more money in the future . . . like a Ponzi scheme called Social Security, but even...

Forget Greece, The US Almost Had a Failed Treasury Bond Auction Interest-Rates / US Bonds Feb 12, 2010 - 12:53 PM By: Graham Summers While most of the investment world focuses on the various ”senior officials” (none of whom seem to have actual names or positions) commenting on whether Greece will or will not be bailed out/ receive an emergency loan/ offered moral support, etc, a far more significant debt story is emerging in the US. On Wednesday the US offered $16 billion worth of 30-year Treasuries (US debt that will mature in 30 years). Before we get into the...

The Nine Chinese Men Who Control The Fate Of America Economics / US Bonds Jan 07, 2010 - 02:12 PM By: DailyWealth Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: Nine politicians in China control the fate of the United States of America. I'm not kidding. The implications are scary. Let me explain... These nine men are the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. They control the value of China's currency. Fortunately, it's easy to forecast what a politician will do... He will do whatever it takes to keep his job. The story is remarkably simple... In China, the goal of these...

<p>President Barack Obama has recently unveiled bold new plans for government programs and tax breaks to try to boost the economy. These initiatives have no price tag yet, but they will require significant spending.</p> <p>You can debate whether new highway and bridge projects and sundry tax breaks will help the economy. That's a political question. But as the U.S. government piles borrowing atop more borrowing, it begs a financial question that is not utterly ridiculous: Are your U.S. Treasury bonds safe?</p>

Milan (AsiaNews) – Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each. Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter...

ROME — Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities. According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that...

Graham Halksworth's neighbours knew him as a pillar of his community: a family man and a trustee of the local golf club. They didn't realise that he was quietly plotting one of the most audacious scams in history. Every Monday morning, 69-year-old Graham Halksworth would bid farewell to his wife Margaret, and leave his home at the top end of the little town of Mossley, high on the shoulder of the Pennines. Smartly dressed and carrying a briefcase, he would negotiate the steps down from their unprepossessing brick-built semi, whose only sign of pretension was its windows, leaded with an...

With their central banks in the vanguard, Asian investors are still doing what comes naturally to them: riding to the rescue of spendthrift Americans with saddlebags full of Asian savings. Will the generosity never cease? Unlikely, it is argued elsewhere in our Focus pages today though, for some, the largesse must rankle given the events of 1997-1998 when the financial crisis that beset the region was described by US critics such as Paul Krugman as ``punishment'' for Asian ``sins''. Unlikely, that is, until Asia develops its own powerful currency unit and an associated debt market of the breadth and depth...