Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

treasury bonds of all kinds...

the treasury.

only.

ever.

printed.

$4 billion and change worth.

ever.

in total.

That's what they say ;).

If you had the variety of (size Extra Large) tin-foil-hats I have in my closet, you could find ways to doubt even that much.

[Southernguy]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Please, read my two etries before: these gentlemen, (japanese or whatever) are just a pair of scammers. In the scam I came across quite a few years ago the "value" was the property documents of a big chunk of the Amazonia "worth" 4 billion dollars.
Their target was probably a couple million dollars....quite a bit of money, in fact.
The scandal in this case arises from being american treasuries the object of the scam.
It is possible that the "japanese" being free, after all, maybe in some places going around with some fake papers is not a crime.....unless you are found trying to catch otherīs people money.

Aplhaville ruminates on this question.

Anyone speak japanese?


So the question now turns into, who were these two men, and who were they acting on behalf of, and why?

[ASH]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Here's our best guess at the scam.

Step 1: Take a large short position in US Treasury bonds.

Step 2: Get your Japanese friends to "smuggle" forged Treasury bonds into a country where you are likely to get "caught."

Step 3: When the rumors fly and the bonds tank, close out your shorts.

Beats working

That's what she said!

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--A cache of what appeared to be around $135 billion of U.S. bonds seized at the Italian-Swiss border is, in fact, worthless, a Treasury Department spokesman said.

Duh - I should have realized this earlier.

The fact that Treasury says they are fake tells us nothing, either way, of the value or origins of those Treasuries.

If Treasury had said they were real, Japan (apparently) would have owed Italy some $25 Billion.

Japan is a more valued ally to the United States than Italy. This is a no brainer for the US Treasury. Don't piss off Japan. Announce they are fake. Follow the money.

As to what money was flowing or continues to flow, and where from or where to, beneath the surface ... that I doubt we have sufficient clues to know.

[World Traveler]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

What has always amazed me is that a lot of folks still believed the analysis and advice in the mainstream financial press and TV stations, after the dot.com bust in 2000.

And especially that they continued to believe in the stock market as a good long term investment, even after a lot of the unethical and illegal behavior on Wall Street was exposed.

In late 2000, I started asking myself, how can anyone trust Wall Street, they're blatant liars, scamsters, AND the government lets them get away with it a lot of the time. I started to regard mainstream financial news as the filler in between what really mattered to the media, paid advertising by financial firms, mutual funds, investment advisors, etc. I also discovered iTulip around that time and it was one of the few sources that made any sense to me, that told the truth.

What's interesting to me now is that my formerly lonely skeptical viewpoint seems to have gone Main Street and the American public now shares many of those sentiments. Better late than never, though it's a shame it was an expensive learning experience for so many.

[sishya]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

tried listening to npr lately?

the producers of these shows don't give a shit about accuracy anymore.

'get me a loudmouth nutjob that people tune into! get me viewers. f&ck the brand!'

of all the people, I don't like is Peter Schiff. He is an anti-american in my book.
He may be right with many things, but he comes of as a one-line man : "USA going down"

[Chris Coles]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Perhaps we could have a much better idea of the provenance or otherwise of the paper, (and do not forget the bank documents that were also there), if we had some way of being able to accurately quantify the sums of money that must have flowed, over the last half century, through the likes of the CIA. They must have funded all sorts of scams and shady characters and if there was one source, that would be it. AND, if that is the case, no one, but absolutely no one would want to EVER own up to what has taken place.

Nothing to do with me gov; fell off the back of a lorry!

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

What has always amazed me is that a lot of folks still believed the analysis and advice in the mainstream financial press and TV stations, after the dot.com bust in 2000.

The point of awakening varies by individual. There were opportunities before the dot.com bust to notice, and continue to be opportunities since.

[D-Mack]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Duh - I should have realized this earlier.

The fact that Treasury says they are fake tells us nothing, either way, of the value or origins of those Treasuries.

If Treasury had said they were real, Japan (apparently) would have owed Italy some $25 Billion.

Japan is a more valued ally to the United States than Italy. This is a no brainer for the US Treasury. Don't piss off Japan. Announce they are fake. Follow the money.

As to what money was flowing or continues to flow, and where from or where to, beneath the surface ... that I doubt we have sufficient clues to know.

It smells, but of what?

(2) According to a brief Bloomberg article regarding this story, the seized bearer bonds allegedly were dated as of 1934. Since bearer bonds in denominations of $500 million did not exist in 1934, the bonds were deduced as fake, though the Italian police are still waiting for a declaration regarding the bonds’ authenticity from the SEC. There is something truly “off” about this declaration. How can the quality of the forged bearer bonds be so meticulous that they “are indistinguishable from the real ones”, yet the people involved in the alleged forgery so ill-informed as to not date the bearer bonds with a more recent year that would not immediately identify them as fraudulent? How hard would it have been to date the bearer bonds with a more recent year? An equivalent analogy would be if an expert art forger meticulously re-created a Picasso oil canvas and then erroneously signed the work with the wrong artist’s name. This story just does not add up.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1434...r-bond-mystery

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

It smells, but of what?

Don't let the details distract you. Sometimes to catch the magician at work, you have to look aside.

That's not to say that I have any idea where to look. I only know that the details that are intended to catch my eye are where not to look.

[FRED]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Please, read my two etries before: these gentlemen, (japanese or whatever) are just a pair of scammers. In the scam I came across quite a few years ago the "value" was the property documents of a big chunk of the Amazonia "worth" 4 billion dollars.
Their target was probably a couple million dollars....quite a bit of money, in fact.
The scandal in this case arises from being american treasuries the object of the scam.
It is possible that the "japanese" being free, after all, maybe in some places going around with some fake papers is not a crime.....unless you are found trying to catch otherīs people money.

That is precisely correct. The authorities could not prove any intent to use the fake documents to defraud. The "smugglers" may have claimed that they intended to sell them as replicas meant as souvenirs of America's heyday as issuer of the world's reserve currency.

[ax]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

What has always amazed me is that a lot of folks still believed the analysis and advice in the mainstream financial press and TV stations, after the dot.com bust in 2000.

And especially that they continued to believe in the stock market as a good long term investment, even after a lot of the unethical and illegal behavior on Wall Street was exposed.

In late 2000, I started asking myself, how can anyone trust Wall Street, they're blatant liars, scamsters, AND the government lets them get away with it a lot of the time. I started to regard mainstream financial news as the filler in between what really mattered to the media, paid advertising by financial firms, mutual funds, investment advisors, etc. I also discovered iTulip around that time and it was one of the few sources that made any sense to me, that told the truth.

What's interesting to me now is that my formerly lonely skeptical viewpoint seems to have gone Main Street and the American public now shares many of those sentiments. Better late than never, though it's a shame it was an expensive learning experience for so many.

Even when beaten in the head by reality, the bullhorn still clouds most people's judgement I believe. My brother-in-law works for a private auditing firm that mostly works with the large mall developers. When last I saw him, he told me there was no way GGP was going under. Then today he tells me that his conference in Vegas had about 40% as many people as last year. But he insisted that retail and housing are getting better.....what?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

the bullhorn still clouds most people's judgement I believe.

Also, we tend to see only that with which we can cope.

That is, if the solution is outside of our capacity to consider, we usually ignore the problem as well.

Only when the problem refuses to be ignored do we then react, often beginning with the usual phases of shock, denial and anger.

[metalman]

Re: Rise of the Demagogues: The case of the $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds - Eric Janszen

Also, we tend to see only that with which we can cope.

That is, if the solution is outside of our capacity to consider, we usually ignore the problem as well.

Only when the problem refuses to be ignored do we then react, often beginning with the usual phases of shock, denial and anger.

what is doomering about but an effort to focus anxiety about 100 incomprehensible troubles onto one, big conceivable/plausible nightmare?

[metalman]

Fake