Fully Registered Bonds

Fully registered bonds are ones that have been sold and registered so that there is a paper trail about who bought the bond, where, and when.

There wasn't always a paper trail that linked you to a bond. Back in the day, you could go to a bank window and buy a bond with cash, and the teller gave you the bond and a book of coupons, which you clipped and mailed snail-mail to the corporation, who then sent you a check, which represented the interest payment for that period.

And then things changed.

Bad dudes like Al Qaeda started to take advantage of this anonymity. They could buy bonds and make money from them for all kinds of bad-guy plots and plans.

So things changed, and the U.S. government wanted to know who was buying bonds and profiting from them. Sure, the record-keeping is a bit of a pain, and if you like to wear a tin foil hat, the registration process might seem like more proof that "they" are watching... but those are the rules of buying bonds today.

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