3d (edited) • The Main Stage
“Word Is Bond” — Deep read & comprehensive breakdown “Overstand Prison Bonds”
Below is a clear, structured glean of the book’s points and mechanics. I’m summarizing what the text says, citing the book directly.
There’s a lot of misconception around where and what the citizens tax dollars are used for. Some think it pays for the roads. That’s simply not true, municipal bonds are what pay for the roads in your town or city.
Learn how municipal bonds fund infrastructure like roads for example. While not directly in the book this directly relates to where our tax dollars are REALY going!
1) Core thesis in the book
- Court matters are treated as commercial debt matters (“assumpsit”), not truly criminal cases; if you “don’t pay the debt,” you’re pushed into default and ultimately prison. The book says this is a civil/mercantile process masked as criminal law.
- Each case is converted into a stack of surety bonds—commonly described here as Bid Bond → Performance Bond → Payment Bond—which are then pooled and sold as investment securities.
- These pooled instruments (the book calls them mortgage-backed securities/MBS) are sold “to a company called TBA (the Bond Market Association),” after which banks and brokerages distribute them as investment products to the public.
- The SEC is framed as the next stop once bonds have been converted into securities; the claim is that after default, “your bond” is turned into an investment security.
- Location of identifiers and clearing, centered on CUSIP numbers and the DTC/DTCC complex at 55 Water Street (NYC), asserting “a trillion dollars a day” clears through DTC.
- “Everybody is feeding off the prison system,” naming large financial networks (e.g., Paine Webber), the CUSIP/ISIDPLUS network, and private-prison entities (e.g., CCA) as part of an integrated system of securitization and profit.
2) Who does what? (the “bond stack” & players)
Actors and flow (per the book):
- Contractor/Corp “tenders a Bid Bond to the U.S. District Court” after buying up judgments; a reinsurer steps in (by “treaty”) as surety; a Performance Bond is then issued to re-insure the Bid Bond. An underwriter (investment banker/broker) steps in to underwrite the Performance Bond.
- The underwriter pools Bid/Performance/Payment bonds into MBS, sells them to TBA (Bond Market Association), and then banks/brokerages convert/sell them to the public as investment securities.
- U.S. District Courts buy State-court default judgments, pointing readers to “Administrative Offices → Financial Department,” “Criminal Justice Act,” and “Optional Bids” as evidence of procurement/bidding mechanics.
- Regulatory frame (as presented): cites 48 CFR (FAR), especially Part 12 “Commercial Items,” to claim court judgments are treated as negotiable instruments sold through the three bonds.
Forms the book references (examples in the text):
- SF-24 (Bid Bond), SF-25 (Performance Bond), SF-25A (Payment Bond) and allied forms (e.g., OF-91, SF-28) appear in the sample filings discussed.
- The book also shows/mentions SF-1416 (Payment Bond for other than construction) and SF-1418 (Performance Bond) as FAR-prescribed surety forms, including their instruction pages.
- Elsewhere it references SF-275/273-275 in the general discussion of payment/performance/bid bonds.
Identifiers/clearing (per the book):
- CUSIP (“Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Processes”) resides “in the DTC building” at 55 Water Street, tied to ISIDPLUS, with a global network including Paine Webber; Paine Webber is a major stockholder in CCA (Corrections Corporation of America).
- The text lists DTCC/NSCC/GSCC/MSCC variants and claims “one trillion dollars a day” flows through DTC.
3) How the prison system “props up” finance (book’s framing)
- Incarceration is a revenue engine because default judgments (framed as civil/assumpsit) produce surety bonds that get securitized and traded, feeding a wide web of financial firms, insurers, underwriters, and the secondary market.
- It links private-prison real estate to REITs and even a “PZN (Prison Trust)”, these entities “own the real estate because they hold the bonds on them,” tying carceral infrastructure to bond finance/real-estate investment.
- “Everybody is feeding off the prison system”—from mortgage-backed structures sold via TBA to the CUSIP/DTCC universe that identifies, clears, and tracks securities.
4) “Where” and “how” these bonds are sold
- Pooling & Sale: After issuance, Bid/Performance/Payment bonds are pooled as MBS and sold to TBA (Bond Market Association), then banks and brokerage houses convert/sell them as investment securities.
- Clearing & Identification: The book situates CUSIP/ISIDPLUS and DTCC/DTC/NSCC/GSCC as the numbering/clearing infrastructure behind these transactions (with the “55 Water Street” data-center detail).
- Regulatory Handoff: The SEC is described as the “next stop” once the bonds are turned into securities.
5) Municipal bonds & roads — finance primer & the connection to prisons (context)
This section is general finance context to connect dots the book mostly implies rather than details explicitly.
- How roads are commonly funded: U.S. cities, counties, and states routinely issue municipal bonds to fund roads, bridges, and other capital projects. Two key flavors are: General-Obligation (GO) bonds (backed by the issuer’s taxing power). Revenue/Lease-Revenue bonds (repaid from a project’s revenue stream—tolls, lease payments, etc.).
- Why “it’s not your taxes directly” (day-one): Even when taxes ultimately support repayment, the up-front cash that paves the road usually comes from bond proceeds raised in the muni market. Tax collections then service debt over time (or a project’s revenues do, for revenue bonds).
- Where muni bonds trade: New issues are underwritten by investment banks and placed with investors (funds, insurers, banks, households). Outstanding bonds trade over-the-counter via broker-dealers and clear/settle through the fixed-income plumbing (e.g., DTCC subsidiaries).
- The prison crossover: Many detention facilities—especially privately operated or authority-owned—have been financed with revenue/lease-revenue municipal bonds (or conduit structures) where facility lease payments or per-diem contracts help service debt. This is the project-finance side of the “prison-industrial complex.” It’s all about case-bond securitization (Bid/Performance/Payment → pooled → sold) and REIT-style ownership of prison real estate; that coexists with the well-established use of municipal bonds to finance roads and sometimes prisons, linking public infrastructure and incarceration to bond markets rather than cash-on-hand taxes.
6) “Birth certificate/CUSIP,” AUTOTRIS & “remedy”
- The book discusses how birth certificates are securities registered up the chain (state → federal → DTC) and identified via CUSIP, with SSN equated to AUTOTRIS tracking.
- It presents a remedy strategy (e.g., “Acceptance for Value … use my exemption for full settlement & closure,” listing CUSIP/AUTOTRIS/case numbers), and positions the filer as Principal/Fiduciary seeking “full settlement and closure.” (I’m summarizing the claim here, not endorsing; this is complex and highly contested in court.)
- The book includes sample affidavits/letters alleging courts sold bonds/securities in a given case, referencing GSA/FAR forms and threatening “default” if officials don’t respond in a specified way.
7) Quick map (book’s claimed pipeline)
Case filed → default/“assumpsit” → surety bonds created (Bid/Performance/Payment) → pooled (MBS) → sold to TBA → banks/brokerages distribute as securities → identifiers/clearing via CUSIP & DTCC/DTC → SEC as destination regulator.
8) Caveats (important)
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- As a finance primer: it is standard that roads and many public assets are funded up-front through bond issuance (including munis) rather than an immediate pile of taxpayer cash “dollars” or “Federal Reserve Notes” or as I like to call them by what they are “IOU debt pledges”.
Bottom line
- The book’s central message is that the justice system functions as a revenue machine by manufacturing surety bonds off court cases, securitizing them, and distributing them through the fixed-income market’s numbering (CUSIP) and clearing (DTCC/DTC) infrastructure—with prisons and prison real estate embedded in that machinery (e.g., via REIT/“PZN” constructs).
- In everyday public finance, roads (and jails/prisons) are funded by bond markets—not literally by the day-one dollars of taxpayers—which is why debt service shows up in budgets for years after the concrete is poured.
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“Word Is Bond” — Deep read & comprehensive breakdown “Overstand Prison Bonds”
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