From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 94 12:32:35 PST
To: ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)
Subject: Re: Promise her anything...
In-Reply-To: <199403222018.MAA23555@mail.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9403222031.AA15785@andria.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Peter Hendrickson says:
> The IRS made bearer bonds illegal about ten years ago.  It seems
> people were using them to evade income tax.  I believe they are
> forbidden within the United States and U.S. citizens are forbidden to
> own them at all anywhere.

Not really true -- much of US debt is still in the form of bearer
bonds, although new bearer bonds are not being produced. I don't think
they were made illegal per se -- I forget what was used to prevent
them from being issued.

In any case, bearer instruments in the generic sense are perfectly
legal. Write a check to "CASH" and what you have is a bearer
instrument.

People wanting to learn about this should get a book on commercial
paper, which is the subset of the law we are discussing.

Perry