His Word Is As Good As His Bond

Those who question the honesty of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner might recall the old saying used as the title of this post. Well, if one extrapolates Geithner to make him represent the United States, the following might give one pause: US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake, blares an AsiaNews.it headline.

What's the story?

Oh, no big deal: "Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each," states the article.

The thing is, apparently no one is sure yet whether the instruments are real or counterfeit. Could shake confidence in U.S. debt instruments, eh? Interesting, when one stops to consider all the nervousness about tomorrow's upcoming bond auction. If sales don't measure up, well, here's a handy excuse!

Perish the thought that a government official of the stature (pun intentded) of Geithner could be thought of as perpetrating such an outrage! Let no one imagine such a photo as this:

Woops! That's not the esteemed SecTreas: it's ET the Extra... No! Why it's... it's... Phil Spector!

Such a thing could never happen to the SecTreas! Could it? Should it?

Mr. Geithner has hair!

And to know him is to love him, as Spector once wrote for the Teddy Bears.

And certainly his word is as good as his bond. We have evidence of that every day.