Monday, June 22, 2009
What could take the dollars place?
Is this the death of the dollar?
Border guards in Chiasso see plenty of smugglers and plenty of false-bottomed suitcases, but no one in the town, which straddles the Italian-Swiss frontier, had ever seen anything like this. Trussed up in front of the police in the train station were two Japanese men, and beside them a suitcase with a booty unlike any other. Concealed at the bottom of the bag were some rather incredible sheets of paper. The documents were apparently dollar-denominated US government bonds with a face value of a staggering $134bn (£81bn).
Posted by flintster1994 @ 09:15 AM (1593 views)
14 thoughts on “What could take the dollars place?”
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paul says:
That story is a) already old news and b) inaccurate.
They were Filipinos, not Japanese. They were carrying fake Japanese passports. Besides, if they were smuggling US bonds out of the country (across a land border by car?!), at the behest of the Japanese government, why didn’t they just have them in sealed diplomatic bags?
No. The bonds are definitely fake, this has been tried a few times. The idea that they were genuine just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
uncle tom says:
Paul,
Agree – the hallmark of most conspiracy stories is someone trying to do something the hard way.
jonb says:
No it is not the death of the dollar. If the dollar was dead, these people wouldn’t be forging them. They would forge another currency instead. Also when you sell bonds, you have to register the sale with the government so they know where to send the interest checks[sic].
japanese uncle says:
Paul:
If they were carrying fake passports, which in itself a well indictable crime, why did the Italian authority not arrest them? Puzzling. I think there is something more sinister to it, albeit different from the alleged story.
debtfree says:
There are a few good points made in this article:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/143462-strange-inconsistencies-in-the-134-5-billion-bearer-bond-mystery
Have to agree, this looks like fake bonds but smells fishy, almost as if they were meant to be caught?
“One of the quickest ways to sabotage and usher in the death of a currency is to raise legitimate questions about its ability to withstand counterfeiting efforts. Prove that counterfeiting is not only possible but highly likely, and the world’s confidence in the sabotaged currency will undoubtedly plummet.
In fact, this very tactic was applied during World War II when the Nazis launched Operation Bernhard in an attempt to crash the British economy by producing, by 1945, 132 million expertly counterfeited British pounds, a figure that represented roughly 15% of all real British pounds in circulation at the time. The counterfeit pounds were produced by expert printers and engravers supervised by an SS officer named Bernhard Krueger.”
flintster1994 says:
The comments under the article make for good reading. The two below interested me some what.
“So what’s the real story? Japan is shedding dollars faster than the market can bear them.
Remember, there’s no law against lying to the press, and if this incident were genuine, the response would be exactly the same, perhaps with an equal amount of deadening media silence.
Counterfeiting $1B bonds? Its as preposterous as counterfeiting a twenty thousand dollar bill. Unusable by anyone outside the government sector…”
“This story may be believable for the few but why would anyone counterfeit a bond that is very easily verified?
One phone call with the serial could confirm the authenticity of it.
These were not fakes but real bonds, and the US government could not let the fact that Japan one of their strongest allies is dumping their money.”
matt_the_hat says:
Its like it says in the article about the dilemma China is facing, these countries want out of the Dollar but don’t want to be seen as wanting out as this would precipitate a crash in their investment.
icarus says:
The dollar may not be dead but why look to forgers for confirmation of that?
If you’re forging these things why not forge them in the country where you’re going to sell them rather than risk crossing a border with them?
And will Ienny’s post @3 be removed? Stay tuned.
japanese uncle says:
Unless there was a tip off from the well informed quarters (most probably the US or associated intelligence), how could they be detected by the Italian police with their border control virtually non-existent these days? In the meantime, this ‘news’ could well have been the disinformation from the party that can benefit from this ‘publicity’ in the financial markets. One cannot rule out the possibility of yet another insider job.
icarus says:
On the wider issue of dollar hegemony it’s worth remembering what else is involved. As Michael Hudson pointed out, China, Russia and their allies challenging this hegemony are saying “We have reached our limit in subsidising the US military encirclement of Eurasia and the US appropriation of our exports, companies, stocks and real estate in exhange for paper money of questionable worth”.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson06152009.html
He might have added “while at the same time you do not allow us to use that paper to buy any US company, installation or infrastructure that is more strategic than a neighbourhood bar, but you do want us to buy equity in your sinking banks”.
d'oh says:
This whole think stinks. Either:
(1) The bonds are real and the current exposure of them as fakes is a cover up, but then the issue is why not smuggle them in a diplomatic pouch? Furthermore, why smuggle them in one lot like this? (or are there more that have gotten through?)
(2) The bonds are fake, but what could an individual do with bonds of such size? This doesn’t make any sense, unless
(3) As hypothesized, the guys were meant to get caught…but if so why fake non-existent bonds? Or was it a case of do perfect fakes of non-existent bonds?
(4) Or the individuals involved are just numpties…but this doesn’t seem believable either given the quality of the forgeries (if they were of high quality).
Veyr, very, very strange.
quiet guy says:
Generally, I don’t go for conspiracy theories but some aspects of this do look strange. Some more commentary here:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1142-The-Bond-Saga-It-Gets-More-Odd.html
uncle tom says:
There are several possible reasons why these people were carrying suitcases of forged bonds.
One might be a variant of the Nigerian ‘419’ scams – trying to get a fat cash loan secured on a bond that is suppoesedly worth 100 times as much.
It is also possible that someone was trying to engineer a ripple in the financial markets, when news of the discovery was broadcast; that they could buy into, and sell out of, with precise timing – to reap a tidy profit.
Although ‘bearer’ bonds are not entirely dead (regular banknotes are really zero interest bearer bonds) – the vast majority of bonds have registered ownership, making the paper document effectively worthless.
debtfree says:
@13 quiet guy,
nice link.
why did the Italian police release them if the bonds are fake?
this is proper espionage secret squirrel stuff. like it.