Fig. 15
Jim Costanzo, Free Money, April 1, 2009
Gülşen Çalık, a Turkish conceptual artist living in New York City, took another approach to the manipulation of the value of cash with How to Make a Buck, an artwork she spent ten years creating. During that time, Çalık removed one very narrow strip from each of more than one hundred twenty-dollar bills. She taped each bill back together, minus the strip, and returned it to circulation. Then she made a composite bill from the stolen strips, a “new” twenty-dollar bill. {Fig. 16}
Çalık’s decade-long moneymaking process made her very nervous, so she calmed herself by logging receipts for each banknote she sent back into circulation. During the process she learned a lot about the composition of money, including the fact that, despite the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s best efforts, the size of the dollar’s rectangle differs from bill to bill. About this literal margin of error, Çalık says, “I could have taken a ruler and a sharp knife and trimmed the edges to perfection, but that would have been unwise.” Çalık believes “the ‘beauty’ of the work is also about its integrity as an honest metaphor for the labor and exchange of the bill; the exchange of work for a splice of currency.”9 Çalık found a new way to make money, but rather than spend it, she chooses to live with it; How to Make a Buck is not for sale.
Fig. 16
Gülşen Çalık, How to Make a Buck, 1999—2009
Artists aren’t the only people who mutilate currency. Bureaucrats, soldiers, spies, magicians, tinkerers, and citizens of every stripe engage in the seemingly irresistible compulsion. Why? To send the world messages about power and patriotism, terrorism and aesthetics, ethics, economics, greed, creed, science, politics, altruism, hatred, ego, and so on. Mutilating money is a thinking person’s gambit; the act is driven by as many motivations as there are people who tread the enticing and shaky line between legality and illegality.
Iris Rose, Wrong, 1983
You can learn a lot from fakes, like the one used by artist Iris Rose in Wrong, her 1983 piece about her experiences with a counterfeiter. We, the people, Rose intimates in this piece of physical evidence/documentation of her postmodern performative work, are on the front lines of fiscal malpractice. We must use our experience and due diligence to protect ourselves.
CHAPTER
5
CASE NO. 6-02848
The Law
Non olet.
(Money does not smell.)1
MONEY CARRIES COMPLEX MEANINGS far and wide, and people everywhere circulate ideas by altering their cash. Federal laws prohibit marking banknotes, but if the authorities prosecuted every case, would Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow have taken pen and ink and signed a bill above his engraved signature? {Fig. 17} Was Snow’s act illegal, or was it OK because of his position of power? Is it illegal for ordinary people—a grandparent, say—to write “Happy Birthday” on a cash gift? A federal law makes mutilation of any “national bank obligation” a crime:
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. 18 U.S.C. §333
If the authorities pursued every occurrence of monetary mutilation, your grandfather might be sharing a cell with the former secretary of the treasury. But enforcement and prosecution of the code hinge on one key word: intent. Happily, the spirit of the law sometimes triumphs over the letter. If your actions are well intended, a case brought against you will likely be quashed.
Fig. 17
One-dollar bill autographed by John W. Snow, seventy-third US secretary of the treasury
When was the last time a teacher believed a student who claimed “The dog ate my homework”? If, however, Fido mauls your money, not all is lost. There exists within the matryoshka doll–like Department of the Treasury a Bureau of Engraving and Printing with an Office of Currency Standards, wherein nests a Mutilated Currency Division, which inspects and provides reimbursement for damaged US currency. The division handles some thirty thousand claims per year, mostly bills compromised by flood or fire. The BEP also has an Office of External Relations with public affairs specialists, one of whom informed me in 2013 that “the redemption program has been inundated with claims from recent global disasters.”2 US currency has never been demonetized (deprived of its fiscal value). No matter where on earth you find yourself and your money, no matter how high the water or how deep the hole, your greenbacks are guaranteed.
In 2009 the Washington Post reported a stunning story of redemption. A Texas customs broker and two associates surfaced with $6.4 million in bills so water-damaged they were fused into bricks.3 Federal investigators called their stories “conflicting and cockamamy” and suspected they were after the gold standard of money laundering: a government reimbursement check. Wrongdoing couldn’t be proven, though, and an out-of-court monetary settlement was eventually reached.
Something similar happened to me. Well, more along the lines of Beethoven’s merry rondo “Rage Over a Lost Penny, Vented in a Caprice.”4 In the autumn of 1995 I spied some partially concealed treasure: a pair of engravings of Andrew Jackson stuck in the metal saddle of a taxi door. “Whoopee,” I thought, “forty scoots,” until I snatched them up and realized that the beguiling portraits of President Jackson were all that was left of the two twenties. Conflicted between keeping the fragments and exploring how the reimbursement process works, I saved one snippet and submitted the other.
A few months later I received a reply from the manager of yet another Treasury office, the Claims Processing Division, indicating my request had been assigned Case No. 6-02848. I was politely instructed that “the portion of the note submitted must measure clearly more than one-half of the original whole note, in order to receive payment.”5 (Otherwise crooks would rip bills in half, turn them in separately, and the Feds would end up paying out double.)6 My portion measured well under one-half, and therefore it could not be exchanged. (There was no mention of what was done with the scrap I submitted—it was probably shredded.) The letter, typed on elegant cream Crane & Co. stationery with watermarked eagles and stars, was signed in ink by Queen McBride, who concluded, on a reassuring note, “Our office stands ready to be of assistance to you on another occasion.”7
A few years later I took Ms. McBride up on her kind offer when I got a one-dollar bill missing an inch or two from its right-hand side. Six months or so later, long after I’d forgotten about the partial dollar, I came home to a letter from the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Management Service’s Regional Financial Center in Philadelphia. Through the envelope’s clear plastic window I saw my name and address on an IRS-esque notice. “Oh no,” I flinched, “another audit.” Fortunately it was only the reimbursement for the torn bill I’d submitted, in the form of a check from the Treasury’s Kansas City, Missouri, office. The memo section of the check included the code “N/A,” an internal Treasury notation “meaning there were no discrepancies or shortages in the amount redeemed versus the amount claimed.”8
The United States keeps a fastidious eye on its money. The system works, and our money really is guaranteed. But at what cost? My request to replace a measly buck had gone from New York City through Washington, DC, to Kansas City to Philadelphia and back to New York. How many federal workers, besides the regional disbursal officer whose printed signature appears on the check, does it take to process such returns? How much does it cost to design, produce, prepare, and mail the multicolored Treasury check with its anticounterfeiting Quick Response code and hidden fluorescent fibers? How much more will it cost because of my decision to keep the check rather than cash it, forcing a federal bookkeeper to eventually cancel the reimbursement and reconcile the books?
/>
These painstaking efforts to honor the dollar’s guarantee give the public faith and uphold the value of US currency the world over. No matter what harm befalls a greenback, it can be submitted to the US Department of the Treasury and will, whenever appropriate, be replaced. (If only similar recompense could be made to the student whose homework really does get eaten by a dog.)
The US Mint, yet another division of the Treasury, promotes similar confidence in its money by redeeming “bent, broken, corroded, not whole, melted together, and not machine countable” coins. Such mutilated coins are no longer accepted at face value, though—their redemption is based on the weights of their various metals. Coins that have suffered lesser degrees of damage are categorized as “uncurrent.” Such readily identifiable and machine-countable coins are redeemed by consumer banks.
Once I sent a mangled penny back to the mint. I never got a response, so I checked the regulations carefully and learned there are substantial minimum weights for mutilated- coin redemption. My penny was infinitesimal compared to the truckloads of coin-redemption shipments that started coming from China in 2008 to a private reimbursement contractor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Surprisingly, a vast majority of the coins were undamaged. The Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General questioned the shippers but was unable to elicit any plausible or verifiable explanation. Coin World magazine submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and discovered that the shippers were probably conducting these international operations to avoid hefty bank coin-counting fees and take advantage of the mint’s no-fee reimbursements.
In order to close the loophole, new recommendations were handed down. Entities seeking reimbursement from the mint must now pack mutilated coins in smaller containers; include no more than a minimal number of machine-countable coins; and submit a Report of International Transportation of Currency or Monetary Instruments (FinCEN Form 105). (FinCEN stands for the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.) The law does not require redeemers to identify the source of their coins, and it is not technically illegal to submit unmutilated coins for redemption, but the mint rejects such submissions because only banks have the authority to redeem unmutilated coins. Additionally, mint employees now observe the reclamation process more closely and assay samples of all large shipments. As a spokesman put it, the mint program is “essentially a cash-for-cash redemption program that, if abused, could potentially be used as a mechanism for…fraud, tax evasion, and [violations of the] Bank Secrecy Act [the legislative act that requires financial institutions to work with government agencies to prevent money laundering].”9 The feds, obviously, want none of that.
As much as money is governed by law, it is also subject to whim. The Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia exhibits frighteningly altered coins in drawer after drawer of bezoars (masses found trapped in gastrointestinal systems). Humans aren’t the only mammals who ingest money. Rats are known to line their nests with gnawed greenbacks, and in 2013 Dr. Cheryl Greenacre of the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville helped pull ninety-seven cents from a duck.10 The law of nature means many birds are attracted to shiny, heavy things, and this duck, who lived in a teenager’s bedroom, also had a necklace and earrings trapped in its esophagus. Greenacre does not know why children, dogs, and even alligators swallow indigestible objects, notably coins, but she says that nickels, dimes, and quarters aren’t as much of a problem as modern pennies, the toxic zinc of which can lead to digestive and neurological problems.11
It is clear that serious wrongdoing with our almighty coins is a felony that can be vigilantly enforced. Then again, those guilty of minor infractions are sometimes let off the hook. In 1963 US marine Ronald Lee Foster of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, was fined twenty dollars and given one year of probation for “sweating” pennies by cutting off their rims and using them as dimes in the base’s coin-operated laundry, cigarette, and soda machines. Half a century later, Foster was pardoned by President Barack Obama.
CHAPTER
6
A HOLE IN YOUR POCKET
Intentionally Burned Money
Argumentum ad crumenam: The informal fallacy of concluding a statement is correct because the speaker is rich.
Argumentum ad lazarum: The informal fallacy of concluding a statement is incorrect because the speaker is poor.
BURNED MONEY IS A POTENT SYMBOL, as fraught with meaning as a battle-scarred flag. High rollers flaunt wealth by lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills. Activists burn cash to register dissatisfaction. In 1996 the first online telerobotic lab opened, and visitors to its website could remotely operate a robot to engage in the illegal act of burning an actual hundred-dollar bill.1 Fire-fused clumps of bills and coins from the 9/11 attacks are preserved for posterity in national museum collections. There are even occultists who carve magical symbols on coins and toss them into fire in the belief they will extinguish the flames.
It is illegal to burn or melt money but acceptable to turn it into art, jewelry, origami, or other creative goods. {Fig. 18} The US Mint does not promote coloring or otherwise altering US coinage, yet its website informs the public that “there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.” The feds seem happy to reap the profit that arises from artistic production that takes coins out of circulation (meaning they will no longer be used as money ordinarily is) and gives them additional market value.
The earliest example I’ve found of an artwork depicting burned US money is A Royal Flush, a widely circulated and displayed 1899 print attributed to artist Charles Alfred Meurer. The print, featuring a realistic image of two Confederate fifty-dollar notes—one newly minted atop another that is badly scorched—was understood at the time to suggest that the South would rise again. In 1927 Otis Kaye followed suit by making his political feelings public with Money to Burn, an oil-on-canvas painting depicting Civil War–era fractional currency (aka “paper coins”), a new ten-dollar bill, a spent matchstick, and a burned federal bill.
Fig. 18
Gay Merrill Gross invented this twenty-one-fold origami model entitled George Washington Framed.
Eighty-three years later, contemporary artist Dread Scott used the same title for his live performance at the intersection of Broad and Wall Streets in Manhattan. One sunny June day in 2010, prefiguring Occupy Wall Street by more than a year, Scott came up from the subway wearing a shirt festooned with two hundred and fifty dollars in singles, fives, tens, and twenties. As deputy director of Franklin Furnace Archive, the nonprofit arts organization that funded his performance, I was on the scene. Carrying a bucket of sand and chanting “money to burn,” Scott slowly marched to the front of the American Stock Exchange. He set down the bucket, plucked a bill from his shirt and a Zippo lighter from his pocket, and began setting the money afire. When the flame got close to his fingers, he snuffed it out and repeated the process. He invited passersby to join him with their own money, drawing curious looks and a small crowd. Some gaped, others reached into their billfolds. A wealthy woman I know asked for change for a five, so she could set just a single ablaze. Others scoffed and spat comments such as “Maybe you should just give it away,” “Why don’t you buy lunch for the homeless?” and “Those dollars could help cure cancer.” These points were valid; I shared with their makers that, like many of us, the artist needed money and worked hard for his income. His higher aim, I continued, was to “highlight the profound polarization of wealth and income that exists” and to question our profit-based systems.2 Scott’s intention in burning money on Wall Street was to parallel destructive closed-door activities of banks and traders and to argue that humanity is better served when people take care of one another.
In preparation for Money to Burn, Scott and Franklin Furnace had worked with a prominent civil-rights attorney and other legal experts and came to understand that the only aspect of the performance that was against the law was the open flame. Thus, Scott’s bucket of sand. I was nervous but confident that we we
re within the law and felt comfortable taking a position against the police barricades protecting the stock exchange. I was soon joined by a black-suited, pinkie-ringed investor who’d come out for a smoke. His ID tag read “Barb,” and, true to his name, he began vehemently airing opinions: “That’s illegal,” “He should be arrested,” and so on. I asked him which law made it illegal. He had no answer and continued his harangue: “Throw the bum in jail—money’s the lifeblood of our nation.” I tried once more to reason with him and asked if it were legal to burn the flag. When he replied, “Of course not,” I realized my efforts to change this patriot’s mind were futile.
A pair of policemen rounded the corner. They kept their distance and discussed the happening between themselves. They were soon joined by another and then another pair of cops. I sidled over when a more menacing patrolman came on the scene and got on his walkie-talkie. The first cop muttered to his partner, “Here we go—Hardball’s got his panties in a knot again.” Finally, the police moved in and asked Scott for identification, which he readily provided. Hardball said, “As far as I’m concerned you’re being disorderly right now.” Scott surprised him. “I’m being disorderly?” he responded softly. “If you want me to stop, I can stop,” and he did. Scott was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, and everyone went on their way. When the case came to court it was thrown out, as video evidence clearly recorded the artist obeying the police.3
Keep the Change Page 3
