Just watched Die Hard and in the film the excellent antagonist Hans Gruber is trying to steal over $600 million in German bearer bonds from the Nakatomi corporation. It occurred to me that I have no idea what they are or why a company would have them.
In: 117
There are two parts, Bearer, And bond
Back to front, for the purpose of explanation.
a bond is just a debt to be paid back in a certain manner, normally with interest, at a certain time.
“X loaned Y $100. Y will pay back $200 in 2 years.”
Bearer just means who ever holds it, or *bears* it, is owed the debt.
So it’s “who ever has this paper, Y will pay back $200 in 2 years.”
Effectively it’s just a piece of paper that has value to it… so it’s nearly as good as cash for a lot of purposes.
They’re not common anymore due to them being used in various manners like money laundering or theft.
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