No Ordinary Counterfeit

[EJ]

No Ordinary Counterfeit (Registration)
July 23, 2006 (New York Times)

On Oct. 2, 2004, the container ship Ever Unique, sailing under a Panamanian flag from Yantai, China, berthed in the Port of Newark. As cranes unloaded the vessel’s shipping containers, which were filled with a variety of commercial goods, dockworkers singled out a container and placed it aboard a flatbed truck, which was driven to a warehouse a few miles away. There, F.B.I. and Secret Service agents, acting as part of a sting operation, gathered around the container and cracked it open. Beneath cardboard boxes containing plastic toys, they found counterfeit $100 bills worth more than $300,000, secreted in false-bottomed compartments.

The counterfeits were nearly flawless. They featured the same high-tech color-shifting ink as genuine American bills and were printed on paper with the same precise composition of fibers. The engraved images were, if anything, finer than those produced by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Only when subjected to sophisticated forensic analysis could the bills be confirmed as imitations.

Counterfeits of this superior sort — known as supernotes — had been detected by law-enforcement officials before, elsewhere in the world, but the Newark shipment marked their first known appearance in the United States, at least in such large quantities.

After the indictments were released, U.S. government and law-enforcement officials began to say in public something that they had long said in private: the counterfeits were being manufactured not by small-time crooks or even sophisticated criminal cartels but by the government of North Korea.

AntiSpin: A goldbug might say, "So what. So North Korea is counterfeiting counterfeit money." But the fact is that if the dollar as bills, the symbols of the US dollar, are allowed lose their brand value via counterfeiting, the result is the same for loss of brand as via devaluation: the dollar's strength as global currency will soon follow. Money is any token that can act both as a means of exchange and a store of value, e.g., cigarettes in a prison. As long as the supply remains limited and genuine, the group will accept it. Make it too plentiful, or allow fake versions to circulate, and it no longer qualifies as money.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Expect to see many more of these amazing discoveries as the elites "prepare/explain/rationalize" moving us to a cashless society.

[EJ]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Expect to see many more of these amazing discoveries as the elites "prepare/explain/rationalize" moving us to a cashless society.

If the fiat bits on disks don't hold up any better than the print on paper, not to worry. The market will devise an answer, e.g., http://goldbarterholdings.com

[Charles Mackay]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Looks good... also James Turk's http://www.goldmoney.com/

I guess we are all John Galt these days..

[jk]

gold banks

has anyone who reads this actually dealt with goldmoney or similar outfits? i've been aware of these options for sometime but have hesitated to use them - it's easier to just buy gld, and i'm concerned about the safety of my money and whether these outfits are scams. any thoughts on the pros and cons of using a service like goldmoney?

[MEHoffer]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

What us think that, if we were moved to "cashless society", we would have any access/facility to/of "e-gold" or any other alt. payment schema?

[EJ]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

What us think that, if we were moved to "cashless society", we would have any access/facility to/of "e-gold" or any other alt. payment schema?

Actually, I'm far less concerned about the value of money in a cashless society than about the loss of privacy. Bits on disks or ink on paper, makes little difference with respect to value as money as a means of exchange and store of value. I suppose you can of course write bits on disk faster than you can ever run a printing press, and maybe that will be the new event of the information age monetary system gone haywire: the first electronic ultra-inflation.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Actually, I'm far less concerned about the value of money in a cashless society than about the loss of privacy.

EJ:

You are perhaps the second person on these fora to bring up the issue of "loss of privacy" as it might relate to a cashless society--which to my infantile technological mind would mean some sort of bank account for every person (including tourists) in the US, and all transactions (some of which I think would have to involve checks) would be tallied through a biometric identification money card.

Now something I do not uncommonly is pee in my back yard, and occasionally I pick my nose, and when I do either of those things despite their uncouthness, I try to exhibit a bit of decorum and do them in private--I do not see where a cashless society would invade that desired privacy. In the last 40 years, the only thing I have done in any wayward manner financially was when I was running around with another woman during my first marriage which ended not because of that. In a messy divorce, careful examination of such expenditures which would be available in a cashless society would have probably worked against by fianancial welfare--but in all fairness I would have deserved such. Before 40 years ago, I did not have enough contact with money that it would have been worth monitoring.

I personally would not care if the IRS, NSA, FBI, CIA and any other agency had monitors in my computer, house, car, trailer and anywhere else anyone cared to put them as long as such were not in my bedroom or bathroom when I am taking a dump.

To me there are innumerable benefits that would come to society if all monetary transactions were documentable and accounted. I think if our society survives and thrives, eventually cash will be replaced with biometric money cards. It is so rational, it surprises me that it doesn't already exist. So much for rationality in our society.

[SeanO]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Jim, I get where you are coming from. The problem is that it is a slippery slope. What will be the next McCarthyism? Are you sure you'd feel the same way about the IRS, NSA, FBI and CIA if your unwillingness to indebt yourself beyond reason was determined to make you un-American and an enemy of the state.

Even the most rational system can be used irrationally by those in power to control it.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Jim, I get where you are coming from. The problem is that it is a slippery slope. What will be the next McCarthyism? Are you sure you'd feel the same way about the IRS, NSA, FBI and CIA if your unwillingness to indebt yourself beyond reason was determined to make you un-American and an enemy of the state.

Even the most rational system can be used irrationally by those in power to control it.

Sean,

I do not know what might be the next thing like McCarthy attempted to be; however, in fact he did not succeed. I appreciate your example, but I do not perceive how it reflects on the pure issue of a cashless society.

In what likely is my simple way, I have thought for some years about many of the problems that exist in this country, my county, and my city, and my neighborhood (and probably yours too) that revolve around greenback dollars and all the illegalities related to them. Perhaps I am too ignorant in believing that there must be some practical manner to deal with all the downsides that occur related to the existence of rather much untraceable cash transactions--and this would go from petty theft at a 7-11 where some poor person gets killed over whatever is in the cash register to no doubt millions of dollars being carted around related to illegal drug sales and other big time illegalities. Nothing personally would p*ss (I left out an " i ") me off more that to have some thug kill me to get $10-15 out of my wallet, and this crap happens too often and has gone on for too many years. Perhaps I am all wrong, but I think a lot of crime would disappear if cash disappeared--little and big crimes. And if the crimes disappear related to cash crimes, would not that have broad economic effects for the better for society?

[jk]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

i share the privacy concerns because, although i trust the constitution, i don't trust the individuals in government. nixon [illegally] had the tax returns of his "enemies" pulled and examined. our current administration has used its illegal tracking of domestic communications for the benefit of its security, not our security, by trying to track not terrorists but people who have leaked embarrassing information to the media. of course they say their rationale is national security, but so did big brother if you recall the book. [that's why loosening of pollution regulations was called the clear skies act.]

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/jeff/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/jeff/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.jpg[/IMG]

[SeanO]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Jim - I completely agree with your points about a cashless society. I'd also add that it might resolve some of the issues around illegal immigration, welfare, and government services spending as I think many cash earners still take advantage of unemployment, food stamps, etc at taxpayers expense.

But I also agree with JK, especially in light of certain events the last 6 years.

I think Ben Franklin got it right when he said "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."

[BillMasi]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Cashless society, no petty cash crime, that's all great.

Explain how a cashless society would have prevented my brokerage account taking a small hit from Bulgaria last week. Someone used my debit card number. No cash involved.

By the way, in a cashless society, how do I manage to enjoy my victimless vices? I might like to get a little high or might want to seek god by opening the drug pathways to higher consciousness?

Bill

[EJ]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

Cashless society, no petty cash crime, that's all great.

Explain how a cashless society would have prevented my brokerage account taking a small hit from Bulgaria last week. Someone used my debit card number. No cash involved.

By the way, in a cashless society, how do I manage to enjoy my victimless vices? I might like to get a little high or might want to seek god by opening the drug pathways to higher consciousness?

Bill

A neighbor worked for a company for 10 years, retired and tried to collect his $30,000 pension from a fund into which he had paid for 10 years. The company said, "We're not going to pay you." My neighbor said, "Why not!?" They said, "Because we don't have to. You can hire a lawyer to try to get your money but we'll make sure it costs you at least $30,000 to do so, and you may lose. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

Let's take this one step further. Let's say the company says to a retiring employee, "You owe us $30,000." "For what?" the employee asks. "For this and that. You can either give us the $30,000 or spend $30,000 on a lawyer to avoid paying us. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

The first case sounds far fetched but it's true. The second case is even more far fetched, but don't count it out. In that case, it'd nice to have some cash someplace where no one can "legally" steal it.

[jk]

Re: No Ordinary Counterfeit

A neighbor worked for a company for 10 years, retired and tried to collect his $30,000 pension from a fund into which he had paid for 10 years. The company said, "We're not going to pay you." My neighbor said, "Why not!?" They said, "Because we don't have to. You can hire a lawyer to try to get your money but we'll make sure it costs you at least $30,000 to do so, and you may lose. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

Let's take this one step further. Let's say the company says to a retiring employee, "You owe us $30,000." "For what?" the employee asks. "For this and that. You can either give us the $30,000 or spend $30,000 on a lawyer to avoid paying us. We can afford it, can you? Have a nice day."

The first case sounds far fetched but it's true. The second case is even more far fetched, but don't count it out. In that case, it'd nice to have some cash someplace where no one can "legally" steal it.

ej, in the first, true, case: was this an entity that was licensed or regulated? e.g. an insurance company? these are the cases where regulatory agencies come in handy. if the fund into which he paid held itself out as a pension fund then it is likely subject to erisa and other rules. i'm curious as to the structure of this crooked enterprise.