U.S. (finally) Says Treasury Bonds Seized in Italy Are Fakes | Hacker News Reader

U.S. (finally) Says Treasury Bonds Seized in Italy Are Fakes

bloomberg.com

I hope some enterprising reporter is able to figure out the whole backstory.

Super high quality fakes of US currency (as in $100 bills) have come out of rouge states for a while. It is not surprising to me, that the same people, or other people too, would attempt to fake this form currency as well.

One of the more conspiratorial explanations being passed around earlier today was that these bonds were secretly sold Japan in the 80s, to finance the growing deficit without letting anyone know. At that time, Japan was the largest holder of US debt, so it makes sense that Japanese people were found carrying the bonds. And if the debt was issued in secret, it should be no surprise that there's no official record of these denominations or coupon/maturity combinations.

I'm pretty sure it's just a criminal scam and we shouldn't read much into it. Still, it's always fun to come up with conspiracy theories.

The interesting part here is that bonds are issued electronically. The electronic part of the international banking system is really fascinating. I've been wondering how hard it would be to "create money out of thin air" by hacking this system. I'm certain that someone has already done this. The best part is that it could be unpunishable, if the money is "created" in a country you know that you will never visit again. Morally, it is equivalent to forging money..except perhaps with no damage to the third party that receives the fake money. Practically victimless if you do it on a small scale.

Does anyone know any good books or other source of information about international banking and money transfer?

I'm thinking that there is a lot of security by obscurity here.

Somewhat related but not exactly the same is this scan of a paper document described as a "Safe Keeping Receipt" from the Federal Reserve:

http://etleboro.com/documents/copy-title.pdf

Note Page 2 phrase: "This ... is an operative instrument, and it is confirmed, irrevocable, unconditional, divisible, transferable and assignable without presentation to us."

So at least until 2006, the Fed did issue paper instruments.

This article says that scanned document is illegitimate:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2009/06/italian-job.html

Whew, it's a good thing that everyone remained calm and no one overreacted about that issue.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a...

Yeah, because if they were real, with all that such a thing would imply about the health of the dollar, the treasury talking head that pronounced them fake would certainly have admitted they were real.

"Yep, they're real. Japan was trying to secretly unload $135Billion, but that doesn't mean you should sell your dollars Mexico, China, Brazil, Russia, or England. Nope, just ignore Japan, they're a little crazy over there"

OR..

"Nope, they were fake!"

I don't believe the Treasuries' statement for a second, because it is precisely the only statement the could make regardless of the truth of the matter.

Haha, dude read the story:

"Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 billion in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered."

and:

"Had the notes been genuine, the pair would have been the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion."

So we are supposing that our declared dept figures are accurate?

I do believe the Treasury's statement, even though it adds little information (i.e. the Treasury would be expected to say the same thing regardless) since reasonable bloggers have advocated the same conclusion with some degree of supporting detail about who probably did it and it being a classic scam.

You don't believe it? You've got to be kidding.You think it's Black Helicopter Tin Foil Hat time? First of all, if they were not fake, it would quickly be found out they are legitimate from other sources and the government would look ridiculous.

Nevertheless, you really find it more believable that they actually seized $135 Billion in bonds from the 1950s from two dumb dumbs crossing the border in Italy? Cool. I have a bridge you might be interested in and for only a fee $50,000 I can give you access to vault filled with $1Million US in Lagos, Nigeria if you are interested.

"the government would look ridiculous."

You criticize me and then make my point for me. No matter what the truth of the matter is the only thing the treasury would say publicly is that they are fakes, that's my point. Even if a portion of the bonds where real you would never hear about it. Period. Find out from whom? Other bondholders? Why would they want to destabilize the value of the bonds they hold?

No, I'm not saying they must be fakes. But come on, do you REALLY think the treasury is completely open about all of it's dealings? There is a reason we went off the the silver standard. There's all sorts of slight of hand you can perform with fiat money that you can't get away with if it needs to be backed up 1:1 with silver.

No, revealing a cover-up of such a thing is much more embarrasing than the original problem.

Damn. I was hoping to be able to write off a cool hundred-bill from the national debt. :)

maybe these are bonds they put into the locked box when SS was running surpluses :)

That was quiet an easy way for the U.S. to reduce their debts!

why are treasury bonds printed on paper anyways? Shouldn't this stuff be in the form of a credit card or something?

As I understand, they're all registered and the registry is what matters. The paper is effectively a receipt.

Just like stock.

These were bearer bonds, with no central registration. Obviously, there are problems with this, so the US no longer issues them.

These were the older ones - up to the 80s you could still get the printed paper / 'bearer' bonds. Today it's all electronic of course.

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