Follow the money...

...it's going somewhere. Folks just aren't sure where:

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland.

Are the bonds real or counterfeit?

The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.

Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia.

These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors.

On his blog, the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if the Treasury “has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years.” Adds Denninger: “Let’s hope we get those answers, and this isn’t one of those ‘funny things’ that just disappears into the night.”

This is still a story with far more questions than answers. It’s odd, though, that it’s not garnering more media attention. Interest is likely to grow.

Years ago Ross Perot referred to a "giant sucking sound" as American industry was outsourced overseas. Today the U.S. is but a hollow shell of itself. I'm increasingly convinced 98% of the actions of those in power are intended to stave off what they recognize as imminent system failure just long enough to get their equities safely somewhere else.