Press Used To Print Millions of US Banknotes Seized In Quebec 398
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Royal Mounted Police report: An offset printing press used to manufacture counterfeit $20 banknotes was seized by the RCMP and US Secret Service. This significant seizure was made earlier today in the Trois-Rivières area. The authorities had been looking for this offset press for several years. A large quantity of paper was also seized by police, that could have been used by the counterfeiters to manufacture from $40-$200 million. The very high quality counterfeit notes were virtually undetectable to the naked eye. Some of the features they had were uncommon, including the type of paper used, which was especially made with a Jackson watermark and a dark vertical stripe imitating the security thread found in authentic notes."
Go after the real thieves lol (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the nerd in this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Couple of criminals bested by another lot of criminals.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone actually is using a printing press? (Score:4, Insightful)
When I first read this story I was amazed to read that someone was still using a printing press to print phony money. I thought only the North Koreans did that because their fakes are printed using the intaglio printing method, the same one used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print American money. You're not going to get that from an offset press.
Re:How they were detected (Score:0, Insightful)
They were printed in both English and French, to avoid breaking Canadian bilingualism laws.
The "In God We Trust, eh?" was another tip-off.
If those are the best Canadian jokes you can come up with, the American sense humour must have deteriorated even further than Hollywood's latest attempts at comedy had suggested.
undetectable to the naked eye (Score:3, Insightful)
And ultimately, that is all you really need to do. Fool the guy at the store counter, which isn't all that hard.
Once it gets back to the bank and is detected, you are long gone.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there's China, its inflation rate skyrocketed into hyperinflation several times during the recent 30 years, yet they've had double-digit growth for about as long as that.
Oh, and inflation primarily hurts 1%-ers because they have to actually invest their capital in risky businesses (work!) rather than sit back and enjoy risk-free rent. For a general worker a mild inflation is a plus, because it erodes the debts (mortgage!) over time.
Re:How is this any different from Fed practice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:undetectable to the naked eye (Score:4, Insightful)
Once it gets back to the bank and is detected, you are long gone.
Hahahahahaha detected at the bank hahahahaha.
People get counterfeit twenties out of ATMs all the time.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How they were detected (Score:5, Insightful)
Big bad counterfeiters! 200 Mil!
I guess they're right. The best way to illegally make money is to own a bank.
HSBC alone, payed out 2 BILLION in just fines, for laundering drug cartel money. And were glad to do it! 2 Bil was only 5 weeks of it's annual profits. Heck, the man responsible at HSBC, Gulliver, got a personal windfall 2 Million in BONUS!
So, if there are "BIG PENALTIES" for these Canadian operators, it's only to keep the ankle-biters off of the big banks' turf.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod parent up, +1 Funny: Japan's qualitative Easing works?!?!??
A lost decade, with no growth, now being stretched to TWO decades with no growth, and you call that working?
That quantitative Easing, those bailouts, are exactly what causes the disasters. So of course they need more of it, because it is clear that they never learned their lesson.
And yes, it appears we need another round of Tarp too. The Fed's holding of worthless promisory notes, never again to be marked to market, with no date of repayment, is now up to 4 trillion dollars.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also correct that purely monetary policy can do little in case of liquidity traps - a loose monetary policy is necessary to get out of liquidity trap, but by itself it can't really affect investment and demand levels.
Re:Go after the real thieves lol (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick is to gain assets greater than your assets.
Translation: The trick is to be born into enough money to make large investments with large returns.
Borrow $1,000,000 and buy 4 $250,000 houses
Translation: I am disconnected from the financial reality of the average working-class citizen.
Sell them in 10 years and you beat inflation, even after inflation and interest.
Translation: Use hard assets, not soft assets, in order to beat inflation.
Of course, to get $1,000,000 in loans, you have to already have money. But I do have enough to borrow to beat inflation.
Translation: You need to be rich like me in order to get rich like me.
If someone inflates against me, I raise rents on my tenants. Problem solved.
Translation: I solve my problems by screwing over the guy who has less initial resources and is thus less able to invest and be rich like me. Profit!
I'm also earning 10% per year (average over 20 years) in the market with retirement and investments. And, of course, being in the top 10% of wage earners, I pay less than 10% of my income as federal income tax (and less than 20% in total taxes, summing all property, sales, state, local and federal taxes). My tax rate should be 3x what it is, but I'm happy to use the system to my benefit. Even if the system is broken.
Translation: I make WAY more money than you and I pay less in taxes than you as a function of income. I should pay 3x as much, but I'm happy to screw the next guy over, who doesn't have enough money to play games with the loopholes or make very large investments.
Do you ever listen to yourself? Do you have ANY idea how much like a stuck up asshole, totally disconnected from the economic reality of the average citizen you sound? By your own admissions and details, you need a sizable amount of money just to play your game in the first place!
Re:learn proper economics please (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if being able to diagnose a disease means you know how to cure it.
If we're all Keynesians, why aren't we all breaking windows to improve the economy? The theory is utterly stupid EVEN IN THEORY, much less in application.
Increasing money supply doesn't magically make people want to consume, all it really does is threaten blackmail to people "stupid" enough to try to save money.
Keynes vs Hayek rap battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] "Fear the Boom and Bust"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] "Fight of the Century"
Keynes was, like Freud, a brilliant man whose observations are seminal to our understanding of his field, but who was in many ways overwhelmingly wrong.
I'll take Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, and ultimately Friedrich Hayek over JMK, thanks