Bill

1 The word “bill” can mean either the beak of a bird, or an arrangement for the appearance of a performer, or a writing at law.

2 Early forms of writing were done with either a bird’s feather (a quill) or with a bird’s beak (its bill) fastened to the end of a stick.

3 Because the point of a quill tended to wear quickly, quills were used primarily for general writing purposes.

4 Because a bird’s bill kept its point relatively well, bills were the preferred instrument in writing important documents — especially legal documents.

5 One form of writing we use today obtained its name from the instrument used in early times to create it; a bill.

6 Today, still carrying the names given to them centuries ago, we hear of documents such as a bill of particulars, a bill of sale, and of course, the Bill of Rights.

7 Today, if you have a telephone at home, you probably receive a bill from the telephone company each month.

8 If you are a Shipper you have undoubtedly seen bills of lading.

9 If you are a building Contractor you are probably familiar with bills of materials.

10 WHAT A BILL IS NOT

11 Now that you know the names of some bills, consider also, one thing a bill is not. It’s not the thing or things described by the writing thereon.

12 For example, a bill of lading which lists 35 grand pianos is certainly not the grand pianos.

13 A bill of materials is not the listed materials. And the Bill of Rights is not the listed Rights!

14 A bill, then, is a writing about a thing or things, NOT the thing or things themselves.

15 However logical and elementary this may seem, you may be surprised to learn that there are people actually walking loose on the streets today who would argue to the contrary.

16 In this group of individuals are a few IRS agents, lawyers and judges, politicians, bankers, and even a few of your neighbors and friends.

17 Now this is not to imply that these folks are totally “whacko” but you might be inclined to think so after you read the rest of this report.

18 This is because we will present some basic financial knowledge, childlike in its simplicity, that may cause you to wonder how it escaped you for so many years.

19 We now remind you of the main thrust of this book . . . the world-famous, almost universally misunderstood, dollar-bill.

20 Remember from an earlier chapter that dollar was defined in the nation’s first Coinage Act of April 2, 1792 as a unit of weight of silver or gold in much the same way that carat is a unit of weight of precious stones.

21 A chunk of pure silver which weighs one dollar also weighs 371.25 grains (0.77 troy ounces).

22 What, then, is a dollar-bill?

23 In a legal and financial context, a dollar-bill loosely means a writing that refers to dollars — that is, a writing in which dollar is used as a unit of measure of weight.

24 To be more precise, we should say that a dollar-bill is a formal notice of indebtedness (a Note) in which the indebtedness is measured in units called dollars.

15 If your telephone bill is expressed in terms of dollars, it is a dollar-bill.

16 But for a more precise example, we might examine a Federal Reserve Note from any of the following series: 1914, 1928, 1934, or 1950.

17 Let’s look at the writing on a Federal Reserve Note and see why it is also a dollar-bill — regardless of its denomination.

18 THE FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE

19 On a Federal Reserve Note, Series 1950, we see what appear to be two complete sentences:

20 Sentence A . . .

"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND TEN DOLLARS."

21 Sentence B . . .

"THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, AND IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY, OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK."

22 In Sentence A we see why the document is called a Note. It identifies the four elements required for the instrument to be a Note at law . . . the maker (the United States of America), the payee (the bearer), the dollar-amount (in this example, Ten), and the due-date (on demand).

23 In the second collection of words, which we labeled Sentence B, we see that some words and phrases are misleading.

24 The misleading words and phrases are "LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, AND . . ."

25 We say misleading because upon careful analysis there is no operative meaning at law expressed in this collection of words.

26 Briefly, since the phrase "LEGAL TENDER" is not preceded by an article (A or THE), it has no meaning at law.

27 The term "FOR" is ambiguous.

28 The term "DEBTS" is inapplicable to Notes.

19 And the phrase "PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" is superfluous to the phrase "ALL DEBTS".

20 If we eliminate the meaningless phrases and superfluous words, the following remains . . ..

"THIS NOTE IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK."

21 In combining the explicit meaning of this sentence B, with the explicit meaning of Sentence A, we see that a special intent is expressed:

1. The United States of America (our federal government) owes somebody ten dollars of money.

2. The somebody is the Bearer of the document.

3. The payment will be made when the Bearer presents the document for payment.

4. The Note may be presented for payment at either the Treasury of the United States or at any Federal Reserve bank.

5. The payment will be made in lawful Money of the United States.

6. There is no expiration date on this agreement, so this agreement lasts forever.

22 REDEEMING FEATURES

23 If you held this official document, and presented it to either the United States Treasury or to a teller at any Federal Reserve bank, you would be presenting a bill to be paid — in lawful Money of the United States.

24 Since the bill in our example specifies the amount of ten dollars, it is referred to as a "TEN-DOLLAR BILL" — but it’s actually a "TEN-DOLLAR-DOLLAR-BILL".

25 When this bill is redeemed, the bearer gets paid lawful money and the bill is taken out of circulation, as a retired demand-Note.

26 In the phrase lawful money, lawful means created pursuant to public law (the Coinage Act of 1792) and money means coins manufactured from silver or gold.

27 The Act of 1792 is still in force today, although it is ignored by our civil-servants and others, who have a monetary interest in our continued ignorance of the Coinage Act’s intent.

28 If you have difficulty understanding the redemption process, consider how a grocer redeems coupons published in his advertisements.

29 A grocer gives the coupon bearer the item (or benefit) described on the coupon, and he then destroys the coupon.

30 These and other demand-Notes were called currency for two reasons.

31 In the public mind, dollar-bills are considered to be currency because they flow in the economy like in the current of a stream.

32 But banks and other financial institutions call dollar-bills, currency for a totally different reason.

33 Since they were payable on demand (immediately redeemable) and because on demand is less than the one year period during which transactions are called current, Federal Reserve Notes, silver Certificates, gold Certificates, and some other government-issued Notes are current assets to the banks or other financial institutions holding them.

34 ANOTHER DOLLAR-BILL PERSPECTIVE

35 If you have a telephone where you live, ask yourself how you are told how much to pay each month. You will probably answer, “Why the telephone company sends me a bill.”

36 Now let’s assume you made a lot of long-distance calls, and your bill this month is $545.

37 When the bill arrives, and you open the envelope and read the amount due, do you shout out to your family, “Hey, guess what? The phone company just sent us five-hundred and forty-five dollars!”

38 Of course you don’t.

39 You know that when the phone company sent you that bill, they expect payment.

40 Bills are a method of communicating to you how much you owe. Bills must be paid. They cannot be spent.

41 You cannot spend the phone bill you receive in the mail — you must pay it.

42 Exactly the same constraints apply to bills of $5.00, $208.50, $325, $50 or any other amount, regardless of who issues them.

43 When Uncle Sam prints a $20 bill, that bill must be paid, too.

44 And you can’t spend Uncle Sam’s bill any more than you can spend your telephone company’s bill.

45 When Uncle Sam printed that bill, it was to be used as evidence of His debt to someone — maybe to you.

46 Uncle Sam printed a lot of bills, and these bills were to be paid by Him at some later day.

47 You might have accepted one of these bills AS money temporarily, for the sake of compactness and portability, but not permanently.

48 Let’s say you are a Postman, and in payment for your work in carrying the mail, Uncle Sam gives you some $20 bills. You accept these money substitutes, fully expecting to be paid at a later date upon your demand.

49 Whenever you feel like it you can take the money substitutes (the bills) to “Uncle Sam” in Washington, D.C. — or to a teller in one of the Federal Reserve Banks — and present the bills for payment on demand.

50 They are to pay you!

51 They are to pay you with “money of account of the United States” or with something else that will discharge your debts!

52 When you present the bills for payment, Uncle Sam has to come up with the money to pay you.

53 By accepting dollar-dollar bills (in lieu of money) you loaned your credit to Uncle Sam and you are to be payed back on your demand!

54 Since on demand is instantaneous, and since instantaneous is within a one-year interval, your dollar-bills are currency for two reasons . . .

55 Reason One — they circulate in the economy as a medium of exchange.

56 Reson Two — they are redeemable within 12 months.

57 At this point you might say, “Wait just a minute here. Every time I go to the store, the storekeeper always accepts those bills in exchange for his products. He doesn’t come after me for payment, so I must have paid for those products with those bills you say I can’t spend. It looks to me like those bills can be spent, and the storekeeper seems to agree. What do you have to say about that?”

58 The answer lies in clarifying what is meant by to word “pay”.

59 Since you did not give the storekeeper actual money, you did not pay him or buy from him, nor did he sell to you (no buying and selling took place).

60 “That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name... or the number...” — Rev. 13:17.

61 You did not “pay” the storekeeper. You “discharged” your obligation to pay him. You made a credit exchange in return for the charge.

62 You traded your “credit” with the storekeeper in exchange for what he gave you in return.

63 He has your bills and can, will, or should present those bills to the Treasurer of the United States for payment to him by the United States.

64 Remember our analogy about Uncle Sam and the Postman? Receipt of authentic government-issued, money-substitutes ($5, $10, and $20 bills, etc.) is considered by the courts to be the same as receiving real money, because the bills could be redeemed for real money upon (the store-keeper’s) demand.

65 The storekeeper will get “paid” when Uncle Sam comes up with the money (the gold or silver coin) to pay the bills — but not before.

66 In the meantime your store-keeper’s “charge” has been dis-charged (postponed to a later time and date).

67 Legitimate paper currency — genuine money substitutes as opposed to tokens; those bills which we are using AS money — were called dollar-bills because they were denominated in dollar units of “lawful money of the United States".

68 Bills can be denominated in Francs, Marks, Lira, or other monetary units. And remember, "dollar" is a unit of weight like pound (i.e. British Pound). The Biblical shekel and talent were units of weight for a metal medium of exchange in ancient times.

69 USING DOLLAR-BILLS

70 Unfortunately (or fortunately) there are no dollar-bills of any denomination in circulation anywhere in the world today.

71 Years ago, people like you and me deposited a lot of coins of silver and gold in banks in exchange for dollar-bills.

72 People liked the convenience of paper currency and trusted the banks with their money, their silver and gold coins.

73 Any time they wanted to take their money back, they took their dollar-bills to the bank and presented them to be payment. And payment was always promptly made in “lawful money of the United States".

74 Such trust wasn’t misplaced, at first. People all over the world would accept United States dollar-bills in exchange for services and goods because our paper currency — redeemable in lawful money of the United States upon demand — was “as good as gold” in their pocket or purse.

75 A Swiss hotel operator who accepted United States dollar-bills would eventually present those dollar-bills for payment by the United States, through international banking channels.

76 DISCHARGING OBLIGATIONS

77 Dollar-bills can never be used to pay anybody for anything, but they can be used to discharge obligations incurred when a person who has no money purchases something he needs.

78 If a seller accepts dollar-bills, the purchaser’s obligation to him is legally discharged.

79 Actual payment will occur when the seller presents the bills for payment at any Federal Reserve bank, when lawful money of the United States is restored.

80 Here’s another way of looking at the discharge of an obligation.

81 Suppose I were a millionaire who is well known in the community as a responsible person, and I give you a Note (an IOU) (a promissory note) in the amount of $1,000 for something you “sold” to me, and my Note is due and payable (by me) in one month.

82 You, on the other hand, want to leave for vacation this week, but you don’t have enough credit to buy your airline tickets, which cost $1200.

83 If your travel agent will accept my Note, you only need to give him $200 to obtain your tickets. The remaining $1000 owed on your ticket will come from me when my “promissory Note” comes due and payable.

84 You are said to have discharged (un-charged) $1000 of your obligation to him via my “promissory Note” (my IOU).

85 The travel agent’s acceptance of my Note is not mandatory, but because he knows I am a responsible person who will exchange my “credit” for the Note as promised, he accepts it.

86 BILLS & PAYMENTS

87 Now you can see why we say that bills cannot be used to “pay” bills.

88 You can’t use your telephone bill to “pay” your electric bill, and you can’t use a Note (someone’s IOU) to “pay” your telephone bill; you can only discharge the charge.

89 However, if your travel agent accepts my Note (my credit) in the amount of $1000, your obligation to your travel agent is “discharged” (un-charged) by that amount.

90 Here are the points to remember about bills . . .

90.1. Only real money pays bills.

90.2. Bills cannot pay bills.

90.3. Bills can only discharge obligations.

91 Subtle changes that were made in the wording on our paper currency, over the years, render it different from the currency that was used to persuade your parents or grandparents to exchange their silver and gold coins for Federal Reserve, paper and ink.

92 TOKENS

93 We can no longer call our paper currency dollar-bills because their notations have been changed.

94 We can no longer exchange (redeem) our currency for lawful money of the United States.

95 The paper currency we have today are not true dollar-bills or Notes, nor are they related to dollars of substance in any way.

96 There’s no relationship between today’s paper currency and silver or gold coins.

97 The most descriptive name for these pieces of paper is "Federal Reserve Tokens" (FRTs).

98 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.