Saturday, September 19, 2009

More 'U.S. Bonds' Seized in Italy

The U.S. Secret Service is examining more than $100 billion of U.S. government bonds confiscated in northern Italy in August, just two months after $134 billion of allegedly fake securities were seized in a nearby town.

Currencies and bonds are becoming easier to counterfeit, and the barriers to entry lower. People can't counterfeit Gold yet, an advantage it has over the printing press. An inability to control counterfeiting might lead to a push for a non-currency economy, something Buiter has proposed for other reasons.

These particular incidents have Mafia laundering written all over them, but where the counterfeit is originating from is hard to tell. Could be organized crime, but could be the covert opps of an unknown government. The politics of destablization are more important now than ever, given the "peace bubble" of MAD.

1 "U.S. Authorities Probing $100 Billion of Bonds Seized in Italy" - Bloomberg

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