Updated June 24, 2009 (Updates are in blue font.)
On June 16, I wrote about a story covered on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show regarding the seizure of $134.5 billion in US Treasury bonds that occured last week on the Italian border.
According to the most recent reports, the seizure actually occurred on the Italian – Swiss border.
At that time, some of the details were rather sketchy.
I found more information on this event today. As is curiously and increasingly the case, the additional information came from a news outlet in Great Britain. The UK Telegraph had a lengthy article on the matter on June 20.
Besides reporting that the US government has since stated that the seized bonds are confirmed forgeries, the article reports extensively on one of the elephants in the room.
The room is the United States and this elephant is the value of the US dollar.
It’s a fairly comprehsensive article. One element of it, in regards to the recent bond seizure, that seems glaringly obvious and is pointed out by Glenn Beck’s guest is the fact that the bonds could only have been counterfeited by a sovereign nation, a government.
The circumstances of the seizure seem to bear out this theory. If a Mickey Mouse operation had produced them, it would have likely been touted as a hoax from the start. Perhaps it is just that the US government was only being tight-lipped. Although that is possible, it seems somewhat unlikely. It’s no secret, as indicated by the UK Telegraph story, that the financial markets are keenly aware that the dollar is in trouble.
However, perhaps I am expecting too much from a U.S. Treasury Department that has given me no reason to believe that it is competant.
In any case, the whole episode only brings the whole question of how dire our financial situation is into sharp focus.
http://www.newser.com/story/62301/134b-bond-fraud-may-be-mob-handiwork.html
