Wow! Check out this story from Britain’s daily mail: Swiss authorities, acting on a tip from Italian police, have confiscated $6trillion in counterfeit U.S. bonds which were in a Swiss bank.
If you can't trust Woodrow Wilson, then who can you trust?
Prosecutors said the fraud had not been completed, but that it appeared that the suspects intended to try to sell the fake bonds to a developing nation, directly or through an intermediary bank.
Eight people were arrested.
I have a question: When they say that these were destined for a 3rd world country, does that mean the Nigerian businessman I’ve been corresponding with is now shit out of luck? That would be a shame, as he promised to share some of the proceeds with me.
Mostly, though, my reaction to this story is a big OMG WTF – 6 TRILLION! That’s a major amount of money. And, despite the absurd amount, the quality of printing (and the fact that they’re going with bonds and not actual currency) indicate that this was not just a prank. They were totally serious and thought they were going to become filthy rich.
I remember about 20 years ago, police in the U.S. busted a marijuana growing operation and it made headlines because of the size of the operation. A cop spokesperson said “That’s more marijuana than we thought there was in the whole country.”
That’s the way I feel about this. 6 trillion – that’s more money than I thought there was in the world. And that raises an interesting question: how much money is there in the world, anyway?
It would make all of the arguments about economics much simpler if we actually knew.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
“$114,500,000,000,000. [$114.5 trillion] – in US unfunded liabilities”: http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/ – that’s how much, sorta. Bonds are not money – they are debt. Money (at least in $) is also debt, so the question is kinda moot. It’s all debt. “All told, anyone looking for all of the [physical] U.S. dollars in the world in July 2009 could expect to find around $8.3 trillion in existence.” But there are probably a lot more by now, given the Fed’s printing spree. RON PAUL 2012!!!™
You’re right, of course, as to the difference between money and debt. A more interesting question, to me, is the difference between money and wealth. Have you ever read any Buckminster Fuller?