Then there’s this report from the Tulsa World a couple days ago:

Rigs go idle as Venezuela delays payments -
The number of Helmerich & Payne rigs still working in Venezuela is down to three and could zero-out by autumn, officials with the Tulsa-based drilling company confirmed Wednesday. Helmerich & Payne Inc. has been allowing rig contracts to expire gradually as Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, gets behind in payments for services. Eight of the 11 rigs in Venezuela are now idle, up from five on April 30. PDVSA has made “limited progress” in making payments, but the accounts are still more than $100 million behind, Helmerich & Payne stated in a presentation to investors Wednesday. ConocoPillips and some other companies have ceased operations in Venezuela over financial disputes in recent years, but Helmerich & Payne “will continue with previously stated approach in trying to work through issues,” said the online investors presentation.

Maybe the mysterious bonds suitcase is just an uncomplicated case of Hugo trying to get some bills paid, one way or another.

In background discussions Thursday, several GOP strategists spoke of the contrast between Democrats’ effort to impose new government “reforms” while, at the same time, the Obama administration appears to be muzzling inspectors generals, who are tasked with providing independent oversight to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies.

Plus, the reporters got it wrong, though only by three orders of magnitude, which I suppose is close enough under current journalistic standards. It was $100 million, not billion, in fakes. It is a shame that such an egregious error, even if deliberate, is unable to pop eyebrows anymore. After all, the Treasury plans to float $107 billion in T-bills next week alone. More people are going to have to learn exponential notation if this is our long-term monetary policy.

If we ever get to the hyperinflation that seems to be coming, I want to buy my coffee with a $10 million dollar bill with Barack Obama’s picture on it, and get a $5 million bill for change with Tim Geither on that. We put Washington and Hamilton on our currency to memorialize their contributions, should our currency be debased it’s only right that we memorialize the architects of that as well. We need to make them famous.

I feel a Facebook group coming on.

I saw the story on Drudge about the 134 Billion in bonds. Just blew past it. Buddy put it in perspective. Well the gummint says they’re fakes. That’s gonna put a dent in the national debt.

veracious/37; thanks, my pleasure, glad you find it useful!

35/36; related?

It’s being pushed by “Combat Fighter Pilot Tom” Harkin, who must’ve not heard of the Civil War, which in a USA with one tenth of today’s population cost 700,000 KIA, a loss which today would be seven million (roughly the entire population of today’s Virginia or Massachusetts) of the nation’s young men.

Then there’s this very large investment in social welfare, which since LBJ’s Great Society has been the record of a society trying hard to do right (note the forty years of very large social programs and the near-vertical progressivity of the tax tables which have paid for them).

Harkin, and his sort, are IMHO a condescending and self-consciously patronizing insult to every American of every race.

Thanks Doug, for the Walpin accounts.

Thanks Wr, for your magical writing fingers.