US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake
Bonds worth US$ 134.5 billion are seized. This is the largest financial smuggling case in history. But are they real? Concern over ‘funny money’ or counterfeit securities is spreading in Asia. The international press is silent.
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 would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.
What caught the policemen’s attention were the billion dollar securities. Such a large denomination is not available in regular financial and banking markets. Only states handle such amounts of money.
The question now is who could or would counterfeit or smuggle these non-negotiable bonds.
In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of 10,000 euros per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.
If the certificates were real, for Italy it would be like hitting the jackpot. The fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.
If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.
As soon as the seizure was made the US Embassy in Rome was informed. Italian and US secret services were called in to assist the Italian financial police.
Some important international financial newspapers had already reported on the existence of ‘funny money’ circulating on parallel, i.e. unofficial, financial markets.
For AsiaNews a few points need considering:
1. When it comes to Italy the world press has tended to focus on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s personal problems rather than on stories like the bonds smuggling affair which has been front page on Italian newspapers.
2. The fear of counterfeit bonds and securities has spread across Asia with the result that real securities are also considered with suspicion.
3. During the Second World War several countries at war printed and put in circulation perfectly counterfeit enemy money. It is also historically established that some central banks, like the Bank of Italy 65 years ago, issued the same securities twice (identical registered number and code). This way they could print more money with legal tender than they officially declared. The main difference though is that 65 years ago the world was involved in a bloody war, which is not the case today.
I would say that we ARE involved in a bloody war, but that the new warfare is financial… the subprime mortgage collapse is another form of economic warfare.
On March 30, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea, reported that preparations were under way for indictments and a trial, saying, “The illegal entry of US reporters into the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements.” The two will face trial on June 4.
According to Kim Tae-woo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, “The journalists considerably weakened their government’s leverage against the North,” in ongoing negotiations over the DPRK’s nuclear program.
On June 8, Reuters reported that the two reporters were found guilty of illegal entry and committing “hostile acts against the DPRK” and subsequently sentenced to twelve years of hard labor.
Not rocket science to figure this one out.
These two are clearly acting as provocateurs for Al Gore’s Current TV. (Yes, the same Al Gore who brought us the Global Warming austerity fraud and the PMRC).
The women will not be mistreated because they’re high profile female “political” prisoners. Mistreating them would be a global outrage and the US would milk it for all it’s worth. Their release will be negotiated at some point. Right now the two women are developing some “street cred” as political activists… so their continued careers as journalists are almost certainly guaranteed.
The US, of course, will use this to increase public support for action against North Korea.
I usually catch some of MSNBC’s Morning Joe a few times a week and I’ll check out the opening and closing shows on CNBC from time to time so I’m used to seeing Dylan Ratigan around. I considered him to be one of the smarter talking heads on the business news programs. Lately, I noticed him missing so i did a little digging…
Ratigan left (CNBC) on March 27, 2009.The New York Times reported he was considering all options but quoted him as saying he was dedicated to covering the economy, “the story that is affecting every American in every setting.”
Apparently, he’s waking up to the oligarchical nature of the US. But wait, it gets better…
In Ratigan’s final CNBC broadcast from the floor of the NYSE he reported on what he called “an important story developing” that Goldman Sachs and “a variety of European banks”, in his assessment and that of his guests, essentially “perpetrated securities fraud” and an “insurance fraud scam” against AIG—and, by extension, the government and taxpayers funding that insurance company’s “bailout”—by insuring their questionable investment vehicles and, upon their devaluation, making claims on them to be paid by AIG “at 100 cents on the dollar” despite all of the markdowns “being forced upon every other” entity including the government, banks, shareholders, bond holders, taxpayers and homeowners.
“I think that it should be a bigger political issue than whether somebody bought an airplane… Forget the private jets, forget who got a million dollar bonus. Fifty billion dollars“, he emphasized, minimizing what he saw as populist side issues to “the real question” of how “government policy makers” are to deal with the “problems of contract law” inherent in the agreements of businesses receiving government assistance during the financial crisis.
“The banks are being asked to take ‘haircuts’ on their toxic assets, why are the Goldmans and the Deutsche Banks of the world not being asked to take haircuts on their toxic credit default swaps? It’s a real question. I will continue to pursue it for sure, I hope others will as well.” Ratigan praised New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s subpoena of AIG to determine the bank payouts as “legitimate inquiry” and looked forward to “a body of lawmakers in Washington D.C. who are going to ask, it appears, some of the same questions that I’m asking.”
very interesting indeed…
more interesting still are the stories from fox & the new york post about why ratigan left CNBC…
fox does give us this little gem from Ratigan,”The value system of capitalism has been corrupted by a small group of bankers, insurance executives and politicians.”
what exactly is “strategic programming” for CNBC? George Orwell would LOVE that term…
these are interesting because the don’t even mention the AIG money story at all…. in other words, they have something to hide… namely: the biggest robbery in history perpetuated by Wall Street… specifically: Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs, of course, the primary beneficiary of the Wall St orchestrated Crude Oil Speculation Bubble… remember Bart Stupak? and the AIG money… hmmm… gee, it’s starting to look like “Government Sachs” is living up to it’s nickname.
“United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under President Barack Obama. He was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner’s position includes a large role in directing the nation’s economic response to the financial crisis which began after December 2007. Specific tasks include directing how $350 billion of Wall Street bailout money is allocated. He is currently dealing with multiple high visibility issues, including the survival of the automobile industry, the restructuring of banks, financial institutions and insurance companies, recovery of the mortgage market, demands for protectionism, Obama’s new tax proposals, and relations with foreign governments that are dealing with similar crises.”
He then attended Dartmouth College, graduating with a B.A. in government and Asian studies in 1983. He earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in 1985. He has studied Chinese and Japanese.
His father, Peter F. Geithner, is the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation’s microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by S. Ann Dunham-Soetoro, President Barack Obama’s mother, and they met in person at least once.
Geithner’s maternal grandfather, Charles F. Moore, was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as a vice president of Ford Motor Company.
He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. Summers was his mentor, but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.
In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department. He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003) at the International Monetary Fund.
In October 2003 at age 42, he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His salary in 2007 was $398,200. Once at the New York Fed, he became Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee component. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.
In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns; in the same year, he played a pivotal role in both the decision to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, though claims were made after Geithner’s nomination that distanced him from both AIG and Lehman Brothers. As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand.
Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the United States Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the financial crisis of 2008.
Paulson has described Geithner as “[a] very unusually talented young man…[who] understands government and understands markets.”
Hank Paulson? Jim Cramer? Ben Bernanke? Larry Summers?
finally, an article which makes the distinctions between sunni/shi’ite, persian/arab, and explains some of the historically feuding clans in the middle east. you’ll never see this stuff in the US media.
Zbigniew Brzezinski to Mika: “.. I loved your introduction and I love to be hosted by you so that I’m not in the clutches of the dangerous Joe (Scarborough).”
Brzezinski (on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates): “Gates is a terrific guy. I’ve known him for years. I worked with him. We jointly prepared a report on Iran several years ago. He was my Executive Assistant many years ago in the National Security Council. He’s top-notch.”
the CFR report on Iran is a hoot and worth checking out: “Page 63, Appendix A, Important Dates in US-Iranian History, 1985-86, Washington and Tehran engage in a complex scheme to fund assistance to Nicaraguan rebels through proceeds of US weapons sales to Iran.” – Translation: The Iran-Contra Affair
Brzezinski (on Joe Biden): “Of course, Senator Biden knows everything that needs to be known about Foreign Policy.”
“needs to be known” does not sound like Brzezinski is an outside observer. it sounds like Zbig is in a position of power much higher than Biden and tells him only what is necessary to further the group’s aims. Translation: Biden knows enough for our purposes.
Brzezinski (on strategic planning): “We have no mechanism for global political planning in the US government. We have one in the State Department. And, of course, the State Department thinks everything is diplomacy. We have one in Defense. They all think that all planning is, of course, military. We have to have high level systematic comprehensive long-range foreign policy planning in the White House, probably under General Jones”
Brzezinski (on Afghanistan): “I have been saying for some months now that we have to be very careful not to repeat the mistake the Soviets made. The Soviets went to Afghanistan on the illusion that a bunch of marxists, afghan marxists, sitting in Kabul could be helped by them to build a replica of the Soviet Republic in Afghanistan. And they went in with their military and they ended up with 150,000 – 180,000 military trying to fight the afghans who would simply not give up, who objected to a foreign presence, to an alien philosophy. We have to be very careful that we don’t push too hard the notion that we’re building a modern nation-state that is democratic and constitutional on the basis of support of pro western democrats, afghans in Kabul, that we have on our side while we’re doing it, essentially, with military power which the afghans resist. So, my view is that while some troops may be needed, more here or there to offset Taliban strength, we have to move more and more in the direction of trying to seek decentralized political accomodations in different parts of Afghanistan, with different segments of the Taliban in some places, in exchange for their pledge to have no relationship with, to expel, or even to extirpate any Al Qaeda presence in the area.”
Brzezinski (on National Security Adviser General James L. Jones): “I don’t have any real sort of inside knowledge but judging him from an occasional conference with him, especially from his past, he was a person whose world view was presumably shaped to a great extent by the fact that he was an extremely successful NATO commander in Europe. He’s experienced in dealing with the Europeans. You know, he speaks remarkably good french, which is impressive. And I’m sure it’s going to make the french swoon. He has an Atlanticist viewpoint. He doesn’t have, perhaps, some of the feel for the third world, for the changing world, to the world that I call ‘globally politically awakened world’ that Obama has. I think one of the very specific qualities of Obama is that he has this feel for the 21st century. But working for Obama, he will certainly be solid on the fundamental issues of power, the relationship of the military and the political of dealing with the Allies, and he is a strong person. So, I imagine he’ll be imposing discipline on the other members of the team.”
A couple things come to mind here. The “Globally Politically Awakened World” refers to us, the internet community.
General Jones, as an ex-NATO commander, is used to fighting Russia. according to wiki: “The first NATO Secretary General Lord Ismay famously stated the organization’s goal was ‘to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’” – Translation: This just points to more of what we already know, Russia is the enemy once again.
Instead of giving the money to bankers to bailout toxic paper, China is following in the footsteps of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. It will be interesting to see which plan actually works, the US or China’s.
The 4 trillion yuan plan ($849 billion), equivalent to about 20% of China’s GDP, is the biggest injection of cash by a government in history.
The Chinese package is expected to focus overwhelmingly on construction. A statement by China’s State Council said the money would be spent on 10 projects including low-income housing, rural infrastructure, water, electricity, transportation, the environment, technological innovation and rebuilding from disasters.
It is also interesting that China expects its own population to pick up the slack in business lost to Chinese factories because Americans are spending less.
The measures are just shy of the $700bn (£442bn) bail-out promised by the United States, but are wider and more comprehensive than the American plan.
The Chinese government said it would “massively” crank up its spending on roads, railways, healthcare, education, power grids and low-cost housing. It also abolished the tight limits on lending that applied to banks, in a move that will open up credit to tens of millions of riskier borrowers.
The State Council said it would boost the economy partly through hiring millions of workers to build a slew of new projects and partly by encouraging Chinese, who are traditionally inclined to save their money, to spend more.
The government hopes that Chinese households will replace American families as the main customers for China’s slew of low-cost factories. Currently, almost 40pc of China’s economy is tied to exports.
Timothy Bond, chief Asian economist at Merrill Lynch, compared the package to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which shored up the American economy after the Wall Street crash of 1929. “The past two weeks have emphasised a simple point,” he said. “Policy works. In China’s case we expect this positive policy to prevent a sharp slowdown.”
He added: “Financing is not an issue. Public debt is only 21pc of gross domestic product.” In the UK, the official statistics show public debt is 43.4pc of GDP, while the ratio is nearly 61pc in the US.
Not much is known about the recent terror attacks in Mumbai, India but one thing is certain, it was perfectly timed for an American audience and the four day Thanksgiving weekend. It is even being called the “Indian 9/11″ by MSNBC.
There is also a rather odd numerology connection to the 08/08/08 Georgian aggression in South Ossetia, the Mumbai attacks have eight targets with started on Nov 26 (2+6=8). Strange coincidence or is this some kind of calling card? I don’t take this numerology stuff seriously, but some people do. For now, I’ll just file it away as “weird”.
The US is already attacking Pakistan on a daily basis with UAV drones. The Mumbai attacks are clearly a provocation to escalate the war in Pakistan. It’s another False-flag operation. (more…)
former Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones likely to be national security adviser
President’s ‘Enforcer’
Jones will play the role as Obama’s “enforcer” to impose discipline and keep everyone working in tandem, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who filled the national security adviser’s post under President Jimmy Carter. Vice President Joe Biden will also help prevent internal conflicts, Brzezinski said in an interview.
“I’m optimistic because of the strength concentrated at the White House,” Brzezinski said. “Otherwise there was a risk of a dispersal of strategy. But I think with Biden and Jones working together and dealing with the president on a daily basis, the chances of asserting control from the national security adviser’s office, which is the key office, are pretty good.”
don’t call it a comeback, i’ve been here for years..
from the WSJ:
Many of the Republicans emerging as potential members of the Obama administration have professional and ideological ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former national-security adviser turned public critic of the Bush White House.
[...]
The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft’s views, which place a premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, might hold sway in the Obama White House.
So, expect an Israeli-Palestinian Peace relatively soon.. they’ve had 90% of an agreement settled for years anyhow so this isn’t as big a stretch as it might seem.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was deputy national-security adviser under Mr. Scowcroft in the George H.W. Bush administration, is almost certain to be retained by Mr. Obama, according to aides to the president-elect. Richard Haass, a Scowcroft protégé and former State Department official, could be tapped for a senior National Security Council, State Department or intelligence position. Mr. Haass currently runs the Council on Foreign Relations.
Other prominent Republicans with close ties to Mr. Obama — including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed the Democrat in the final days of the campaign, and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — share Mr. Scowcroft’s philosophy.
“I think most of my close associates have a generally similar view,” Mr. Scowcroft said in an interview. “What’s the old story about birds of a feather?”
Mr. Scowcroft said his biggest piece of advice for the new administration was that it should make a renewed push to help broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. He also endorsed Mr. Obama’s call for diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Also, NO war with Iran. Biden already let the cat out of the bag when he told Israel to get used to the idea of a nuclear Iran.
“Compared to the other alternatives we face with Iran, we ought to give it a really good, sincere try,” Mr. Scowcroft said. “I have a hunch that we’ll be more successful than a lot of detractors think.”
Obama aides declined to comment on the substance of the conversations. A transition aide said the president-elect has “deep respect for Brent Scowcroft.”
Mr. Scowcroft’s re-emergence caps a tumultuous few years for the 83-year-old former Air Force general. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Mr. Scowcroft wrote an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal arguing against an invasion and warning that it would “seriously jeopardize, if not destroy” the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. In speeches and interviews, he regularly criticized both the decision to invade Iraq and the Bush team’s handling of the war effort.
Now this is where it gets controversial. Bush/Cheney got away from the 9/11 plan when they invaded Iraq. There’s a huge war in heaven over this which came to a head in Sep 2007. Now the Neocons are OUT.
Essentially, 9/11 was a grand strategy to carve up Russia, not the Middle East.
I like how he differentiates between financial markets and the “real economy”.. priceless!
And once again was the fact of being concrete and the efficacy of the actions we agree upon which is helping us to solve one of the most recent crises which have affected our countries, that of the financial crisis, which we must absolutely prevent from being a crisis affecting real economy, as well. (more…)
The plot thickens.. this is the third world leader calling for a new Bretton Woods.
LONDON, October 13 (RIA Novosti) – Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday world leaders should set up a new Bretton Woods system to tackle the global financial crisis. (more…)
Very interesting.. I wonder if anything will come out of this. The Bretton Woods system existed before currency speculation in a time when exchange rates were determined by treaty. We’d do well to eliminate risk and return to this.
I hope its true.
Berlusconi didn’t give any details about what kind of rules leaders were looking to change, except to say that leaders are “talking about a new Bretton Woods.”
The Bretton Woods Agreements were adopted to rebuild the international economic system after World War II in a hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The aim of the agreements was to establish a monetary management system, initially by pegging currencies to gold. The IMF was set up later to help manage the international financial system.
Well, Paulson got his $770 billion (more like $1.8 trillion) bailout. Now why is the market crashing?
McCain was on today talking about buying up bad mortgages.. some $330 billion for that. Wasn’t this what the bailout was supposed to be for?
The 678.91 point plunge on the DOW today is being blamed on GM losing 30% of it’s value. This is absurd. Blame anyone but Wall Street.
What we’re seeing is the irresistible gravity of $1-2 quadrillion of derivatives turning their “super profit” leverage in the negative direction. It’s a black hole and must be deleted.
Paper is NOT Wealth. Commodities are wealth. Property is wealth. Production is wealth. Paper is an abstraction.
It’s very interesting that the USD is holding up pretty well vs the pound, euro, CAD. The crash seems to be hitting all currencies somewhat equally.
A couple of interesting things about this clip: it’s rare to see a Rothschild, the famous european banking family, in public. Lynn Forester was introduced to her husband, Sir Evelyn, by Henry Kissinger, of all people, at a meeting of the Bilderberg group, of all places.
NEW YORK, October 8 (RIA Novosti) — The U.S. stock market has suffered a $700 billion paper loss in a single session, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which tracks the stocks of 5,000 U.S.-based companies. (more…)
Ok, small consolation here but it’s still entertaining to hear about Lehman Bros CEO getting knocked out after bankrupting the company… He still made out like a bandit, to the tune of $480 million. Fuld should be jailed, his assets should be seized and distributed to the people who lost money… stealing from ppl’s retirement fund is about as reprehensible an act as one can commit. Old people will suffer as a result of this.
The other funny thing is – I’m not sure anyone noticed, but – the hedge fund in question was named Harbinger, as in Harbinger of DOOM. How prophetic.
Again, very interesting… I would love to do away with currency speculation.
Head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn:
“The world economic situation is very worrying and the IMF is going to publish growth forecasts that are markedly lower than what we have had until now.
“The formula of a new Bretton Woods is a pretty formula. What is sure is that it is necessary to review the functioning of the architecture of the global financial system.”
This report, from September 12, puts the bailout figure much higher than the $700 billion we were told
The U.S. Treasury Department is working through the weekend with Congress to craft a plan to spend as much as $700 billion to absorb bad mortgages and other assets from bank or other institution balance sheets to keep the financial system from collapsing.
The move comes close on the heels of an $85 billion Federal Reserve rescue of American International Group and the Treasury’s takeover of housing finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Treasury plan, which follows a new federal guarantee for money market fund holdings, would push Washington’s potential bailout tab to $1.8 trillion.
Derivatives is a taboo word these days. It’s rare that someone even mentions them directly. As a protest vote, Ron Paul is good. However, I question his economic polices. Libertarian Austrian School economics is what got us into this mess in the first place. It’s time to get rid of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek and return to the Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, FDR New Deal, and the American School of economics.
