Money Monday

The Federal Reserve is not typically the victim of theft. In fact, many US taxpayers would argue that the institution is usually the one responsible for widespread theft and counterfeiting, as its inflationary policies steal the buying power from the savings accounts of people on fixed incomes. Poor people who must use US dollars to pay for rent, food, and clothing may also feel robbed when their weekly paychecks buy fewer and fewer goods and services.

However, the tables were turned this week as a more conventional brand of thief took bank heisting to a new extreme by boosting a shipment of fresh 100 dollar bills from an airplane in Philadelphia. The newly printed Benjamins had just been shipped from the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve, according to a report by NBC New York. By the time the courier service charged with delivering the package made it to the New Jersey branch, a “large amount” (according to Fed officials) of these new bills were missing. Since the funds were not due to be released into the economy until next year, there could be some serious implications.

Who Would Pull off a Heist on the Federal Reserve?

The media seems largely disinterested in one of the most outrageous bank heist stories of all time. It’s one thing for a group of scoundrels to swipe funds from a local brick and mortar institution, but for them to target a central bank of the nation with the most powerful military in the world seems unusually risky and brazen. The stolen funds have a new type of watermark, so, if they are spent any time soon, it will be obvious.

Could foreign governments be involved? Could there be clandestine activity afoot? While the FBI has warned retailers to be on the lookout for the newly designed bills, the media is not investigating it as a matter of national security. While it’s certainly too early to speculate, one wonders if the lack of attention to the subject is by design. Why is it not a front page story when thieves steal an unknown number of new $100 bills from the Federal Reserve?

How Many $100 Bills Does the Federal Reserve Consider a “Large Amount”?

In keeping with the institution’s tradition of providing zero transparency, the Federal Reserve described the amount of dollars stolen as “large.” When one considers that the Fed is currently involved in creating trillions in new money, it follows that said institution’s definition of large may far exceed that of the typical taxpayer. How many $100 bills were stolen from the airplane? Is it a serious amount that will have inflationary implications if let loose into the economy too soon?

While even a 757 filled from nose to tail with Benjamins might not hold as much money as is created each month via QE, the fact that such bills are vulnerable to theft could be serious enough to have an effect on world markets. Considering the fact that the Fed won’t tell us how much money was lost, it’s easy to imagine that the vagueness of the data has a specific purpose. Why can’t taxpayers know just how much of our currency was lost by our central bank? Will the Fed reprint the lost funds and introduce them into the economy twice, given the fact that the thieves will doubtlessly launder these funds into the black market? Early reports indicate that the total may have been around $20,000, but these are not well-sourced as of yet. If that were the case, the damage to the economy would be fairly limited.

Regardless of the economic implications, it seems odd that the mainstream media and US government are treating this theft with such little concern. The Federal Reserve, the central bank whose debt note backs most world currencies, was apparently hit by thieves, and no one in the political and media establishment seems to find that the slightest bit alarming.

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