WEBVTT - Meet The Mayor Who Printed His Own Currency To Fight The Virus 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.640 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:19.599 I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe. Wisn't all so Joe? Uh? 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.480 We like to talk about money on this podcast, don't we? 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.360 We love to talk about money. Of course, talking about 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.760 market talking about economics is always inherently or to some 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.120 extented discussion about money. But we also like to discuss 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.600 money itself, as in the stuff, what it is, where 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.159 it comes from, what gives it its value, how it 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.440 evolves over time. Those are, of course some of my favorite, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.760 favorite favorite episodes that we do. Yeah, I know they are. 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:50.959 And that's why I think you're going to enjoy this one, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.200 because we are going to dive into a sort of 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.880 I want to say, brand new currency, but it actually 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.680 kind of has its roots in some thing very very old, 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:06.080 which is during the Great Depression, we saw a bunch 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.520 of different towns and areas in the United States issue 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.199 their own local currencies. We also saw sort of unions work, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.080 unions issue their own script. This is something HARKing back 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.240 to that era. Yeah, absolutely right. Like you know, we 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.639 have this crisis in this country and it affects every 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.080 layer of government and every kind of business. But we 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:30.920 have this sort of weird issue where a lot of 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.160 the entities that are on the on the front lines 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.320 of fighting the crisis, so to speak, of the cities, towns, 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.160 and states that deliver services to the people, but they 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.800 can't create their own money for the most part, unlike 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.560 the federal government. And this is all coming at a 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.440 time when because of the collapse in the economy and 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.080 the collapse of service activity like restaurants and stores, tax 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.200 revenue is really dried up. So a lot of public 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.600 entities at the state and local level, while they sort 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.600 of wait, hopefully perhaps for more relief from the federal government, 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.040 are in a severe crunch. Right. You have this tension 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.800 between the federal level and the local level. But like 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.480 I said, you know, there have been instances in time 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.560 where the local level, the local entities, towns, villages, you 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.640 name it, take matters into their own hands and decide 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.040 that they're not going to wait necessarily for federal money. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.880 So this is going to be one of those instances. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.560 And I'm happy to say that today we're going to 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.480 speak with Wayne Fournier. He's the mayor of Tonino, Washington, 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.440 population just shy of two thousand people. And over there 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.680 and to Nino they've invented their own currency as part 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.160 of their response to the COVID nineteen crisis. I can't wait. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.160 I love this all right. Well, without further ado, let's 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.960 bring on our guest, Mayor Fournier. Thank you so much 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.120 for being with us, Thank you for having me tray. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.720 Maybe just to begin with, you could sort of lay 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.320 the scene for us. I mentioned to I know, is 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.960 a relatively small town. What's it like and what's been 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.720 the impact of the coronavirus crisis. Like you said, we're 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.520 a smaller city of just under two thousand people. We 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.680 we lie just about smack dab in between Portland and 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.799 Seattle in the Pacific northwest. Uh and we're relatively isolated. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.480 Uh So when the lockdown occurs and the shutdown happens, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.600 most of our businesses are service industry and there's not 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.639 you know, there's no like manufacturing anything like that. So 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.240 when the lockdown happens, all the restaurants, the stores, the 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.280 retail they just roll up there, you know, they roll 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.800 up the carpets and they locked the doors. For about 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.520 three months, there was no traffic, There was no cars 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.760 parked downtown on you know, the traditional main street as 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.640 you would kind of picture it in a kind of 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.400 the kind of an old way of thinking of a city, 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.760 and no people walking around. There was little to no 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:59.040 economic activity outside of our supermarket where you couldn't buy 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:04.400 toilet paper anything like that. And so, you know, seeing this, uh, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.120 this lack of activity and knowing that there would be 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:12.240 some you know, financial fallout from it, we decided to 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.360 dust off an old idea that popped up into nino 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.159 In where we were the first city, I believe, in 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.360 the US to develop our own wooden dollar, our own currency, 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.880 and so we fired up the same printing press built 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.120 me seventies. Yeah, yeah, this, you know, we we've we've 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.320 celebrated our history and and the fact that we were, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.760 you know, on the cutting edge in the in the 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.159 thirties during the Great Depression, and we've we've kept this 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.320 printing press in our museum since then. And so when 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.080 it came time to fire it up again and use 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.720 it to print money, it it worked. We've got a 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.280 guy that knows how to operate it without losing an arm. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.760 Because when you fire this thing up, all these gears 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.039 start turning and steams popping up out of places and 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.720 it looks like something out of you know, the Wizard 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.200 of Oz or Willy Wonka or something. And you know 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.480 this this person who's in there for two days straight 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.839 printing off these these two sided bills and he'd have 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.400 to print every single one individually, flip it and uh 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.400 and it was it was quite a process. But we 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:33.039 fired it up again and we're going for it. So 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.359 when I love that, I didn't even realize that. I 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.200 love that you have the old printing press for the currency. 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:39.840 I want to talk about that in a little bit 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.640 very but before we do go further down the road, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.599 I just want to back up for a second and 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:51.279 just talk about the sort of Tonino's municipal finance. What 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.520 is uh? What is your operating budget? Where does the 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.760 money typically come from, what do you spend it on 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.000 like in normal times like your what do the finances 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:06.200 of uh? Tonight? Know? Look like we have about a 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.919 five million dollar budget. Most of that is wrapped up, 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.160 which is I mean, that's that's tiny, and most of 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.720 that is wrapped up in a wastewater treatment plan operation. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.679 So our our our water and sewer utilities we've got 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.560 you know, we built a state of the art wastewater 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.200 treatment plant like two thousand nine, and so most of 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.840 our budgets budget is wrapped up in the debt service 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.039 of that, so then about half of that is it 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.800 goes towards operations. We have a police department, we have 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.159 public works, UM, we have city Hall where we do 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.240 all the administrative tasks. You know, there's not a lot 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.600 of money to go around. We've been working really hard 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.200 for the last couple of years because we things have 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.680 been going well, to save up some money. So we've 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.640 got a little bit of money sitting in reserves, kind 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:54.760 of an emergency fund, and that's what we've been able 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.440 to tap into for for this. Not that you know, 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.160 we're we only printed ten thousand dollars, so we've print 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.840 and printed ten dollar bills. But for a city of 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.200 two thousand people, you know, it's if you were to 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.239 multiply that by you know, a large city, it gets 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.880 it gets uh, you know, it gets noteworthy quick, I feel, 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.680 and it's a scalable thing. You know. We're we as 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.440 a city for a lot of things, we're just like 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.440 a little laboratory and we're you know, we have the 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.440 ability to try interesting, crazy things. See if they work. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.280 It would be wild for the City of New York 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.600 to start printing its own money. But tonight, let's give 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.640 it a shot, you know, so real quickly. Uh, you 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.400 mentioned the five million dollar budget, but we're on the 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:42.000 revenue side. What is the standard source of that property taxes? Yeah, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:43.280 so we don't have a lot of you know, we 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.280 don't have a lot of commercial or manufacturing bringing in 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.600 you know, tax revenue. Primarily it's property taxes. And we're 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.440 a bedroom community. What have you seen in terms of 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.800 a response from either the sort of state government or 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.280 the federal government. Did you get any emergency help for 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:06.240 the coronavirus crisis from those two layers of government. There 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:07.760 there's a little bit of money that came in from 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.920 the Cares Act, sixty dollars here, a little bit there, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.360 and then we have to find ways to use it. 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.840 We have you know, literally I think twelve to thirteen employees, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:20.880 and so our city Hall has three people in it 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:25.520 and they are tasked with, you know, doing the routine things. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.080 When something like some federal funds become available, typically we 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.800 don't have the staffing and the ability to apply, compete, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.040 go through the bureaucracy of you know, getting a little 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.800 bit of table scraps that are available to us. So 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.160 most of the time federal funds we just we don't 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.920 even we don't even apply for because all the rules 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.560 make it not even worth us putting in the effort. 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.280 That's interesting, I say, I don't know anything about that, 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.560 but like, what is the the sort of process? Like 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.480 I guess if you were bigger and had more staff 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.800 at the city hall, Uh, you could theoretically aim to 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.280 get some of that money. But Okay, something like the 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:10.240 Carrsack passes and they make some money available for towns 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.840 and cities and states, how does that work? Or you 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.960 said you've got sixty dollars, Like, how do you go 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.599 about getting that? Or how do the bigger towns go 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.600 about getting it? It depends on where it comes from, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.319 you know. Like there there are systems like Community Development 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.640 Block Grants. Right, So we we are an entitlement county. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.680 So our county has done the work for us to 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.280 make us eligible for CDBG funds. If we were not, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.240 we would have to go and compete with everybody else, 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.200 and we'd have to have staff that we're dedicated to 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.600 administering those funds. We have staff that are dedicated already 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.520 to absolutely everything. We we can't. We don't. We don't 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.600 have the ability to have. We don't have planning staff. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.119 We don't have grant writers. We don't have a finance department. 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.839 Our finance department is like six of one person's job, 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.920 and they're already ta ask And I'm not much help 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.559 I you know, I'm just I'm just a normal citizen 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.520 that decided for some reason to be mayor. You know, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.000 I'm a I'm a knuckle dragging firefighter in my in 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.800 my day job, and then I put on a mayor 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:13.439 haut every once in a while and try to figure 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.240 things out on my own. I had to start by 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:19.120 googling what money was before I started printing it. That's 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.400 the best. Oh, it's fun. What did you find when 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.440 you googled what money was? What were some of the 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.360 things that you found useful? You know, some of the 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.440 original money it was originally an ancient sunario was traded 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.160 playing beads, and you know it was backed by sheep 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.840 in the communal pen and you know, like stuff like 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.439 that is fascinating, and you know, just what what is money? 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.720 It's it's just whatever the hell we want to put 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.120 our trust in that is going to satisfy a debt 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.200 between two people or two you know things, and you 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.240 know some so some people are debating what you know, 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.240 Internationally right this, this whole this story that we're talking 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.200 about right now, it's it's in Israeli media, it's in India. 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.520 It's an uh you know I I've seen it in 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.559 the Persian Gulf Times, the Fiji Times. So all over 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.560 the world people are talking about this thing that we're 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.440 doing in this town of two thousand people. I'm seeing 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.400 in newspapers where they have like somebody from the Institute 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.520 on Economics is debating what Mayor Wayne Fournier is calling money. Well, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.719 it's not money. It is money. And I'm getting a 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.400 kick out of this whole thing. It's it's insane. I 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.800 don't know what money really is. I don't know, if 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.360 you know, Steve man Nuchin is going to call me 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.200 someday and you know, say I'm gonna go to federal prison. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.920 I hope for something like that. I mean, that would 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.679 just make the story more interesting. I'm trying to think 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.840 how to respond to that. Well, actually, you mentioned that 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.839 you just decided to become mayor sort of one day, Um, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.880 you have an interesting backstory, right you were, well, you 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.440 are a firefighter, and I think I read somewhere that 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.320 you were doing like bank cesque type art. How did 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.640 you get into local politics? So, my grandpa was the 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.120 police chief in the seventies here and my my dad 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.559 was an assistant ire chief. So I kind of grew 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.319 up in the city caring about things and being involved 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.760 in things. And I went to school and got a 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.120 degree in philosophy. So i'm you know, I kind of 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.280 you know, I probably think differently than some people. And uh, 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.760 when I was about thirty one, there were things that 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.000 I just found irritating and also I want, you know, 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.000 I I have a drive to you know, being a 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.160 leadership role. And I went and spoke with the mayor 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.120 at the time about some things that I had concerns 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.400 with and he kind of like I felt like I 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:37.240 was kind of shrugged off, and I didn't like that. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.080 So I came up with the scheme for like rousing 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.880 interest in public property. And a friend and I a 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.559 friend and I the guy that designed this, uh this artwork. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.360 He's an excellent artist. He and I came up with 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.800 the concept of you know, like guerrilla public service. It 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.880 wasn't our concept, so it was at the time. Yeah, 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.280 Shepherd Ferry was was really popular and banks he was 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.760 really popular, and so we came up with our own 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.920 gorilla art and guerrilla public service campaign where we would, uh, 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.360 I bought like thirty used bicycles and spray painted of 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.560 yellow and then I wrote share all over them, and 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:21.000 I was promoting just sharing resources and meeting your neighbor 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.480 and started talking calling these public property on the social 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.120 media and the regime. You know, the political folks at 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:30.960 the time, they didn't even know what social media was. 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.480 So they would wake up and they would find these 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.959 bright yellow bicycles under street lamps and what the heck 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:38.440 are these? You know, we need to get them off 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.120 the streets. Their garbage, And we'd get on social media. 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.920 How dare they call our bicycles garbage? They belonged to 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.160 the people, And then kids started thinking they were cool, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.800 and parents would take their kids out and get pictures 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.640 of them riding around. It was really like a moment 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.280 that the community kind of bonded on something that wasn't 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.960 from the establishment, and so it became an anti establish 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.360 Schmith movement and we were constantly kind of thumbing our 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.280 nose and we would do we and we're a city 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.640 at two thousand people where everybody knows each other, and 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.920 we would do uh, we would do press press conferences, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.160 and my buddy Adam would wear like a band and 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.480 over his face and hide his voice, but everybody in 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.520 town knew who he was. So it was kind of 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.480 fun and tongue in cheek, and you know, it was 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.880 I was kind of like studying like what it was 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.520 to do, like you know, guerrilla warfare and stuff like that, 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.840 and where you would you know, you take the resources 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.600 of the establishment, you turn it on its head. And 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.200 to make a bicycle, to weaponize a bicycle was kind 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.760 of the concept because you know, who hates a bicycle. 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.240 But at the same time, the the established order like 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.400 side is just a poke in the eye every time 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.240 they saw one. But it was fun. We had the 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.400 same thing I went to college and where I am now, 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.680 but I went to college in Austin, Texas. We had 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.560 the same thing. The Yellow Bike Project was called, and 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:55.240 I remember those but I don't know if it's still 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.000 around here, but that was a pretty cool thing. And 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.080 and then and sadly, like all things. Is it as 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:06.640 as I became the institution, the yellow bicycles became less rebellious, 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.480 and we get grants and it became a nonprofit, and 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.120 then it becomes stale. And now they're just like instead 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.280 of like these wild horses roaming around town, they're like 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.240 corralled on a on a bike corral and you check 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.480 them out and you have to sign so you don't 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.560 sue people. And I don't know, it's funny. So so 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.480 let's talk about the money itself. What is it good for? 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.720 How did you distribute it? And what can you actually 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.240 do with it? How do people use it to pay 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.040 their bills? Just talk about the mechanics it gets into 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.160 someone's hand, what can they do with it? Why do 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.360 stores accept it? Walk us through that book. So the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.360 the people that live in the city, if you're a resident, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.200 you're eligible to apply. You come in and you apply 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.960 and you have to show the city that you have 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.280 been harmed financially through the pandemic. And then based on 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.480 your income level, you're eligible for up to three dollars 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.720 and we would distribute once a month. You're eligible for 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.520 your allotment, and then you just get it. You get 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.720 these wooden dollars, you can take them to any participating business, 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.600 which is nearly all of them, and you can use 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:16.080 them just like the US dollar. And then the business 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.840 that accepts them there that are participating, they should have 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.520 come into the city hall and read the program requirements 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.160 that you cannot uh, you cannot give more than cents 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.600 in US dollars change, you cannot you cannot use it 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.760 to pay for alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, lottery tickets, and that 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.160 that's basically about it. And then if you are a 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.560 business that has certified that you understand that, you can 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.120 then take these dollars in and trade them, exchange them 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.200 one one to one with the City of Tonino. However, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.960 most of the businesses are and we haven't haven't done that. 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.400 I think we had our first ones exchanged just recently 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.480 because the Tonino dollars were more than the US dollar. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.400 So there there's a lot of outside interest, and there's 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.680 a lot of you know kind of you know, what 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:09.800 where does value come from. It comes from demand. So 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.680 there's a high demand for these things, and there are 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.800 people offering five dollars a piece per note. So the 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.040 to nine O dollar has a higher exchange rate than 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.000 the US dollars, so we're not getting them back there 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.959 being circulated, or they're being sold on the gray market 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:32.000 or so then businesses are responding and now they're offering 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.199 twice as much in goods for the so you can 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.640 get fifty dollars and goods for the twenty five dollar 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.480 US UH to nine O dollar in some businesses here, 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.639 that opens up so many questions. So first of all, 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.560 how do you like, what is the current exchange rate 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.320 of a to nine O dollar versus a US dollar? 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.600 And how do you know that's the correct exchange rate? 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.760 And then secondly, does that affect how much of your 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.800 budget you're using to fund this program? Or are you 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.600 mentioned you know, ten thousand U S dollars set aside 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.560 for this um so as the exchange rate sort of changes, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.919 does that impact the budget? How? How am I saying 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.639 that there's an there is an exchange right because we 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.639 get phone calls every day, our our businesses are getting 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.399 phone calls from all over the world, Portugal, China, and 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.000 people are offering seven times the value of the face value. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.280 So I say, well seven to one. You know, it's 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.360 it's that simple, If you know, I'm kind of keeping 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.360 my finger on the pulse. I get several several emails 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.960 every day. And if people are offering seven times the 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.440 face value, then I I guess that means it's the 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.000 seven to one exchange rate. How does that affect the 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.159 city budget? It doesn't because the city is not going 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:48.600 to respond to that. The city is only going to 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.240 back at one to one. I see, okay, got it. 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.399 We have a tent, we have a potential ten tho 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.400 dollar liability, but we know that won't be realized. So 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.040 now we could you know, we could have printed off 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.639 twenty you know, having having ten thousand in the budget, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.359 we could have potentially printed off twenty thousand bills and 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.959 put them out to be to be used. Which is 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.720 that that's like getting into like the more theoretical side 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.840 of it. I'm really getting excited about. You know, then 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.840 we're generating wealth, right, instead of just one to one, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.560 we're creating something from nothing. You know, the FED has 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.440 all these swap lines with foreign central banks and their 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.240 currencies so they can swap their own you know, they 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.760 need dollars like everyone else, like say the Bank of 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.720 Japan or you know, the I don't know other banks, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.359 and then they swapped their currencies with the Federal Reserve 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.040 to get dollars. I take it. Has the Federal Reserve 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.600 ever reached out to you and offered to uh, swap 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:49.440 US dollars for tonight? No dollars, not yet. But this 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.200 is this is crazy to mean. I'm gonna pull it 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.360 up real quick. Fox Business News ran an article earlier 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.880 today and the headline was, is in Fox Business News 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.600 today to I know wooden money valued higher than the 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:06.120 US green back. That's a great function. Visit is headline. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:27.200 I know. M So, we've been talking a lot about 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.119 the international response, and you've seen a lot of interest 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.720 abroad in this. Talk to us about the local response. 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.880 How have your constituents reacted to this? And I guess 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:38.679 you have sort of two sides to this, right, you 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.040 have the people who are getting the ton I know, 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.640 wooden dollars, and you also have the shops who are 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.199 exchanging those for them. There's a lot of excitement. There 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:51.520 seems to be a lot of pride. Uh. This is 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.160 this is a city that really enjoys its history and 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.359 we you know, we treated as a you know, one 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.119 of our our greatest commodities. Being able to relive it 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.560 and being able to participate in a historic moment. People are, 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.520 they're really enjoying it. When a business gets the wooden 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.960 money in, you'll see a post on you know, Facebook 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.760 or Instagram where they're celebrating it, and everybody starts kind 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:19.000 of talking about it. Outside of tonight, know, there's been 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.840 a lot of a lot of cities and smaller cities 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.600 that have contacted us asking us for our our guidelines 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.560 and our ordinances and they're they're wanting to create their 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.840 own local currency programs a lot like ours. And that 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.280 is another really fascinating aspect to this is you know, 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.679 we we set aside ten thousand dollars, that's nothing. But 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.119 if five thousand cities set aside ten thousand dollars and 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.600 inject it right into their main street, that's a lot 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.960 of money. And it's like it's kind of like a 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.840 like a ground up approach instead of waiting for the 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.720 Feds to you know, rain money down on you from above, 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.639 which never never gets there. It always ends up and 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.560 you know in some blue chip company or you know, 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.399 somebody's friends ends up getting it all or what you know, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.600 you read about that every day, and this this is 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.399 a chance where cities taken upon themselves and packed the 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.520 system and inject it right into their businesses, and it 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.960 wouldn't take very many cities to have kind of a 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.719