Supernotes

Kevin Drum has a great little story…

From the “minor curiosity” file: A report from Switzerland, the acknowledged masters of banknote printing, concludes that it’s unlikely that North Korea is the source of the counterfeit “supernotes” that have been circulating around the world for the past few years. But there’s also this:

For years, analysts have wondered why the supernotes — which are detectable only with sophisticated, expensive technology — appear to have been produced in quantities less than it would cost to acquire the sophisticated machinery needed to make them…..”What defies logic is the limited, or even controlled, amount of ‘exclusive’ fakes that have appeared over the years. The organization could easily circulate tenfold that amount without raising suspicions,” says the Swiss police report, which also says Switzerland has seized 5 percent of all known supernotes.

Moreover, it noted that the manufacturer of the supernotes had issued 19 different versions, an “enormous effort” that only a criminal organization or state could undertake. The updates closely tracked the changes in U.S. currency issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

I don’t know. I play with a lot of a data. Its been my experience that if the results are just flat crazy, and don’t fit any reasonable scenario, when you go back and check the data its wrong. My guess… there are a heck of a lot of fake dollars out there, somewhere. They’re either not in use right now, or they are in use, and not being detected. Which makes them equivalent to the real thing.