ANTIESTABLISHMENTARIAN

On July 3, 2009 two men presenting Japanese passports were detained at the Italian/Swiss border and found smuggling $134 BILLION in alleged U.S. Bearer bonds, which are unregistered bonds that haven’t been issued since 1982. For decades, US bearer bonds were a favorite form of money for all manner of illegal activities, including those of governments owing to their large denominations. One hundred million dollars could easily be hidden and transported in something as small as one piece of paper instead of the usual suitcase loads of cash. Bearer bonds thus met their demise as the money laundering instrument of choice.

This is a story that stinks as badly as any Bill Clinton scandal. It has lies and deception written all over it. It involves the governments of three nations, Italy, the US and Japan, and all three are clearly concealing and misrepresenting the truth.

Let’s start off with one important fact: This story which originated in Chiasso, Italy is either the largest smuggling or counterfeiting story in world history. And perhaps the oddest thing of all is that the corporate media is studiously ignoring it – a media story worth hundreds of millions. Why?

It took the US government two weeks to break their silence and declare that the bonds were fakes.

Reuters, 6/19/09 – “Another U.S. official said the seized bonds were purported to be issued during the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s, but the certificates showed a picture of a space shuttle on it — a spacecraft that first flew in 1981. Some of the bonds were purportedly issued in a $500 billion denomination that never existed.”

The original photo taken and published by the Italians shows no such bonds. We can see that much.

Let’s examine this statement. First, “some of the bonds” were issued in $500 BILLION denomination. Uh, guys, the Italian police said the total face value was “only” $134 billion.” Some” means more than one, so we’d be talking trillions here, not billions. Gotcha. Issued in early 1960s? Okay, let’s say 1963. Since 30 years is the longest bond issued, those bonds would have expired in 1993. That means someone loaned the USG $134 billion for an additional 16 years for free! Quite unlikely, mehinks.

From the same Reuters story: “Based on the photograph we’ve seen online, they are clearly fake. And not even good fakes,” said Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt. A photo you saw ONLINE? You mean you made your determination of fakes by looking at an internet photo? Sure, I believe that. And it only took them two weeks.

Fact: None of the photos of those bonds show a clear view. The one taken by the Italians is far enough away that very little detail can be made out. Moreover, that photo looks suspiciously staged. They are neatly fanned out on a very small table with two police type hats strategically positioned at each side of the table with a leather pouch or purse in the middle. The ones shown by the Japanese media look like a photo taken from a car windshield during a blizzard.

Now, I could go on an on detailing and discussing all the “facts,” but like the Kennedy assassination, the truth is already buried and will remain that way. In just a few weeks a mountain of disinformation has been put out. This is the standard government tactic for obscuring the facts: bury the truth in a pile of lies. There is thus little point to debate the details any further. Instead, we need to focus on the major points that can be verified.

There are three important details that stand out above all others, (1) the huge denomination of the bonds, (2) Japanese men (3) heading for Zurich.

Japan is the second largest owner of US bonds. Last week its finance minister made a loud and absurd proclamation that Japan has “utter confidence” in US bonds. The ensuing laughter could be heard as far away as the moon.

There is one gargantuan bit of truth that stands out like a sore thumb if you know what to look for. It is this: Bonds of this huge denomination are inter-governmental bonds and are only issued and sold between governments. The denominations are far too large to be handled by persons or corporations., and far too risky. That means that the chance of these bonds being fake is nearly zero since only a government entity would stand a chance of passing fakes of such huge size. Moreover, it is simply not credible that any entity is stupid enough to print and try to transact fakes. Not even North Korea. The same goes for the latest ruse that the mafia done it. The mafia is definitely not that stupid. Small bonds, yes; $500 million bonds, never.

Some Background on Treasury Bonds

These bonds have long been considered as liquid as cash and often used as same. In 1966 more than 90% of all marketable Treasury debt was held in bearer form. The “same as cash” mentality was the primary reason. But bearer bonds presented many problems including burdensome and costly bookkeeping, handling and the problem of theft and loss.

A government that holds $700 billion worth of your bonds wouldn’t seem likely to want them in $1million denominations, for that means storing and handling 700,000 pieces of paper. Even 700 one billion or 1400 five hundred million dollar bonds is a lot of paper to account for. Seen in this light, a billion dollar bond is hardly unreasonable. And yet most governments still still demand physical rather than electronic certificates. This is proven by the fact that a very large percentage of all foreign held bonds are held in custodial banks. No need for that with digital bonds. The obvious question is why would they do this? The equally obvious answer is so that they can sell their bonds anonymously.

Beginning in 1966 the US Treasury began the process of phasing out bearer bonds, but this process also began the phasing out anonymity of ownership. I have an unverified report that the last bearer bonds were issued in 1974. However, that could well be only as a matter of public policy but may continue under special circumstances. Assuming bearer bonds were ended in 1974, the last bonds would have matured in 2004. So what happens if a bond holder doesn’t cash in his mature bond? Actually, nothing since it remains redeemable indefinitely, albeit without any further interest payments.

I notice that the bonds in the photo look like they contain coupons, detachable tickets for payment of interest. I could be wrong since its hard to tell. If so, that would indeed make them bearer bonds. There would be nothing surprising about the Japanese government wanting to hold a large amount of bearer bonds. Particularly more than thirty years ago when that nation’s distrust of foreigners was still very strong and its xenophobia infamous. And it might even find a good reason to hold a large amount beyond maturity. On the other hand, who’s to say that the Treasury did not continue to issue bearer bonds under certain circumstances?

Note that if these were not bearer bonds, that fact would preclude any motivation for selling them secretly, for non bearer bonds are all registered and any transaction would soon be detected. In that case we could rule out Japan as the owner/seller.

The truth is that we do not know what exactly what kind of bonds these are, but we do know the extraordinary length the government goes to make sure a $20 can’t be faked, so how much more so a $500 million or $1 billion bond? We can be certain that they are NOT bearer bonds as it would be plain crazy to issue such things, so we can rule that out. Governments have no need of bearer bonds. Lie #1 for the Italians. Secondly, if the bonds are real they would be registered and easily confirm-able. Thirdly, the US and the other two governments have a motivation to cover up the caper since no matter what the truth, it causes everyone big trouble.

Therefore, even though all parties are lying, it is hard to think of any reason to for this caper to be wholly invented. The greater probability is that the bonds are real, that the Japanese men are really Japanese and most likely government agents on their way to Switzerland to transact a prearranged deal to transact these bonds. Most likely a major Swiss bank was going to handle the transaction for a huge fee. The bonds would almost certainly be sold to numerous private entities at a big discount and thus have to be sold off individually and not as a lot, hence the reason they were going to Zurich. And then the Italian police inadvertently foiled Japans attempt to secretly liquidate some of their US bond holdings. With the deal in danger of becoming exposed, all sides then jump on the cover-up bandwagon to save the US bond market . . . with a large part of the financial world all praying that this debacle fades silently into the night.

This most likely explains why the two men were released and not arrested and jailed, why they were not named, why no government pressed charges, and why the ensuring barrage of misinformation and withholding of information. This is the one explanation wherein ALL the details make sense.

Where were these two men headed? Zurich, Switzerland. What’s in Zurich if not the major world banking center and the center of the infamous Swiss secret banking laws, the primary purpose of which is money laundering. It looks pretty clear to me that the Japanese government got caught trying to sell off some of their shaky US debt in secret so as not to panic the markets. That they would try to do this is understandable and hardly surprising, perhaps even inevitable.

I’d put the odds on this explanation as 99% certain.