Speaker 1: Hey, there are aud Loots listeners. It's Tracy Alloway and Joe.
Speaker 2: Why isn't thal.
Speaker 1: We are very excited to announce that Oddlots is going
Speaker 1: to Washington That's right.
Speaker 2: For the first time, we are going to do a
Speaker 2: live public Odd Lots recording in our nation's capital. That's
Speaker 2: going to be March twelfth in Washington, DC at the
Speaker 2: Miracle Theater and guests will be announced in the coming days.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime you can find a ticket link
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg dot com slash odd.
Speaker 3: Lots, Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 4: Go flow it until the other door.
Speaker 5: Shows and there's gonna be one more we got to
Speaker 5: go through, so come on and.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you can definitely get trapped in here.
Speaker 4: This is the trap and everyone must come in and
Speaker 4: the door now we can go to the next.
Speaker 2: Door, deep underground, coming through elevator. The sort of monochrome quietness,
Speaker 2: the uniforms. This kind of reminds me of severance a
Speaker 2: little bit. Has anyone made that observation before?
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: Is this the one where we get severed? Tracy my
Speaker 2: name is Jill Wisenthal, and I freely consent to being severed. Joe.
Speaker 1: We are not getting the severance procedure, but we are
Speaker 1: about to go to a place that not many people
Speaker 1: get to see. We are going deep into the vaults
Speaker 1: of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to tour its
Speaker 1: cash operations and get an inside look at how money
Speaker 1: is actually distributed.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yes, okay, welcome to cash. In this episode,
Speaker 2: we take a walk through the basement of the Chicago
Speaker 2: FED and we learn all about how the central bank
Speaker 2: processes and delivers cash. Cash operations will not quote highly
Speaker 2: classified like in the inner workings of the office and
Speaker 2: the show Severance. They're well beyond the public eye for
Speaker 2: obvious reasons. So this is a rare look or listen,
Speaker 2: I guess at the inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're not actually allowed to take any pictures
Speaker 1: or videos inside the vaults, So an audio format actually
Speaker 1: does pretty well here. And this is all really interesting
Speaker 1: because we're used to thinking about the FED in terms
Speaker 1: of monetary policy, raising or cutting interest rates to try
Speaker 1: to keep inflation in check and unemployment low, and there's
Speaker 1: stuff like bank regulation. Of course, we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that on the show. All of that can feel
Speaker 1: very theoretical, but there's this very physical side to the
Speaker 1: FED as well.
Speaker 2: That's totally right. The cash in your wallet has got
Speaker 2: to come from somewhere, right, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: comes from the FED, or at least it moves through
Speaker 2: one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, the Bureau of
Speaker 2: Engraving and actually makes the money, and then it gets
Speaker 2: delivered and processed through the FED banks and the Chicago
Speaker 2: FED building itself.
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of looks exactly like how you
Speaker 1: might picture an old fashioned bank. It has these giant,
Speaker 1: beautiful neo classical columns on the outside and inside inside
Speaker 1: is where the magic happens.
Speaker 4: We set up a system in the United States with
Speaker 4: twelve reserve banks around the country because in nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 4: as today, people were deeply uncomfortable with the financial system
Speaker 4: being run exclusively by New York City and Washington, DC.
Speaker 4: So they wanted input from all around the country. And
Speaker 4: one component of the job is monetary policy, like we
Speaker 4: talk about all the time.
Speaker 2: That's Austin Gouldsby, President of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank,
Speaker 2: and you've probably heard him on the podcast. A couple
Speaker 2: of times before, very recognizable voice, and he's usually you know,
Speaker 2: talking about the macro environment, monetary policy, things like that.
Speaker 1: But now you're going to hear him talk about something
Speaker 1: very different, being the bank behind the banks, the one
Speaker 1: that actually provides them with cold, hard cash.
Speaker 4: We're also a real, live, working bank, and we got
Speaker 4: seventeen eighteen hundred employees. We are a bank two banks,
Speaker 4: and they have a master account. We pay interest on
Speaker 4: their deposits into that account, which our bank reserves, and
Speaker 4: we provide FED wire. We do ach direct deposit, we
Speaker 4: do FED now and one of the things we do
Speaker 4: is cash. It's one of the FED financial services. And
Speaker 4: so if one of our member banks wants cash for
Speaker 4: their ATMs, they'll send in and say, just like you
Speaker 4: in your account, you go down the ATM, you take
Speaker 4: some cash out. They say, we want cash to put
Speaker 4: in our ATM, so take that out of our master account.
Speaker 4: They send a brainstruck over here and they place an order.
Speaker 4: We count it out, we give it to them. If
Speaker 4: they have too much currency, they send it to us
Speaker 4: in the same brainstruck. We take it in, we run
Speaker 4: it through machines, we count it, we pull out anything
Speaker 4: that's been signed, or somebody spit on it, or you
Speaker 4: know it's dirty and shred it. We process it, put
Speaker 4: it in our vaults, send it out the next day,
Speaker 4: and we get a bunch of shipments of brand new
Speaker 4: money from the Bureau engraving and printing. So it's a
Speaker 4: very live operation and you're going to see it. There
Speaker 4: are a lot of people work there, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of machinery, and it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: Pretty neat is putting it mildly, because it turns out
Speaker 2: that Austin and Lusts giving the tours of the cash shop,
Speaker 2: something that was totally evident while we did it. I
Speaker 2: think most people on finance and economics love money, but
Speaker 2: Austin really loves money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So join me and Joe and Austin on this
Speaker 1: special edition of odd Blots as we follow how money
Speaker 1: actually moves through the Federal Reserve system. We are standing
Speaker 1: in the lobby of the Chicago Fed building. There's a
Speaker 1: beautiful staircase and a balcony that looks down on this
Speaker 1: gorgeous atrium. Apparently there used to be machine guns mounted
Speaker 1: up there, and now there's security guards at the entrance,
Speaker 1: the Fed's own police force.
Speaker 2: And as Austin mentioned earlier, the Chicago FED was established
Speaker 2: in nineteen fourteen, and back then investors didn't have much
Speaker 2: reassurance that their bank deposits were, you know, actually safe.
Speaker 2: And after months of back and forth, Congress passed the
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve Act, establishing the FED Reserve System and the
Speaker 2: twelve reserve banks that cover the entire.
Speaker 1: Country, and the Chicago FED covers parts of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and the state of Iowa. And as we've said before,
Speaker 1: we are used to talking about whether the FED is
Speaker 1: doing a good job on things like inflation and unemployment,
Speaker 1: but we don't actually talk that much about its other
Speaker 1: big job, which is managing the money.
Speaker 5: We know when we're doing a good job when you
Speaker 5: can go to an ATM and there's money in it.
Speaker 5: You can go to a grocery store and you can
Speaker 5: pay in cash and they have changed to give you
Speaker 5: in currency.
Speaker 2: Mike Kepler is an executive vice president of the district's
Speaker 2: Cash Operation and the Chicago FED Central Bank Service Area.
Speaker 5: So essentially I oversee the full currency operation between our
Speaker 5: Chicago and Detroit offices that includes everything from processing the
Speaker 5: currency on the high speed machines to paying our orders
Speaker 5: to financial institutions in our district and taking money in.
Speaker 1: Even though we live in a world that's full of
Speaker 1: digital payment systems, cash still plays a role in everyday transactions.
Speaker 2: Cash is Lindy, that's right, Jo.
Speaker 5: It's extremely important. So you know, think about things like
Speaker 5: hurricanes or weather related events or power outages where electronic
Speaker 5: payments don't work. In fact, I was in the store
Speaker 5: the other day and their credit card system was down,
Speaker 5: and fortunately I had cash in my pocket, so I
Speaker 5: was able to jump the line and get my stuff
Speaker 5: and get out the door while theres were kind of
Speaker 5: waiting for the credit card machine to pop back up.
Speaker 5: So it is very important, and not all consumers use
Speaker 5: just one payment type. So in fact, you can imagine
Speaker 5: in today's times, electronic payments, debit cards credit cards are
Speaker 5: the primary two vehicles that folks use for transactions, but
Speaker 5: cash is a third, very close third for payments.
Speaker 4: And look, the thing is as the share of payments
Speaker 4: that are made electronically mobile banking using cards rises, people
Speaker 4: have this tendency to say, oh, well there is no cash.
Speaker 4: I don't even see cash. If you go look, you
Speaker 4: and you can look off fred. It's on there. Currency
Speaker 4: and circulation as a share of GDP is over ten percent,
Speaker 4: and that's among the highest percent on record, or at
Speaker 4: least since the nineteen eighties that you can find on FRED.
Speaker 4: That's double what it was in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: That's like four times higher as a percent than it
Speaker 4: was forty years ago. And it's shockingly large per person.
Speaker 4: It's like forty eight hundred dollars per person on average
Speaker 4: in money.
Speaker 1: Joe, I don't know about you, but I always keep
Speaker 1: four eight hundred dollars in cash just in case I
Speaker 1: have to spontaneously buy, like I don't know, a MacBook
Speaker 1: Pro or something.
Speaker 2: Emergency lumber purchases, maybe a thousand chickens for you.
Speaker 1: That's sure.
Speaker 6: Hi, Hi, teat to.
Speaker 4: The amazing Ami Colorado.
Speaker 6: Welcome to cash.
Speaker 1: Getting into the basement where the Chicago Fed's cash ops
Speaker 1: actually are is a process.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of cameras, there's a lot of security,
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of rules. So don't don't go
Speaker 4: fishing in your pockets, don't pull out your wallet while.
Speaker 1: We're right So there's no putting your hands in your pockets,
Speaker 1: and you're not allowed to carry anything with you after
Speaker 1: going down in the elevator. I'm not even sure what
Speaker 1: floor we're actually on, and we have to pass through
Speaker 1: multiple security doors before we get here.
Speaker 2: But when we do get there, it's pretty cool. We're
Speaker 2: in the transfer area where money comes in and processing begins.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you, there's money everywhere.
Speaker 1: So we're standing next to a big box filled with cash.
Speaker 1: How much would be in something like that?
Speaker 6: Twenty is roughly eight and a half million.
Speaker 1: Wow, Joe, grab it quickly.
Speaker 3: Now you'll see a lot of money.
Speaker 6: As we walk around today.
Speaker 2: That's Amy Elvarado, the bank's vice president of district Cash Operations.
Speaker 2: She oversees the entire process.
Speaker 6: Our team will go in the room and check all
Speaker 6: of the bags as the armored carriers drop them off.
Speaker 6: We'll make sure all the bags are intact and sealed
Speaker 6: and everything. We'll count them. We're doing this bag count
Speaker 6: and then we're signing off on it. That's when we
Speaker 6: would release the carriers, and that's the transfer process coming in.
Speaker 1: There's a long hallway stretching out in front of us.
Speaker 1: The walls are white and there's rooms on either side
Speaker 1: that have large windows and glass doors. In fact, one
Speaker 1: of the most striking things about this place is just
Speaker 1: how much you can see.
Speaker 2: Everything is seen through, even the doors. Amy and Austin
Speaker 2: tell us that transparency is paramount to the security of
Speaker 2: the whole operation, giving that they're dealing with, you know, cash.
Speaker 6: A reason why these doors are clear is because we
Speaker 6: are never in the room with these carriers. At the
Speaker 6: same time. The carriers will come in onto the concourse,
Speaker 6: they will unload their currency bags onto rolling screens, as
Speaker 6: we call them, They will put them in the room,
Speaker 6: they will go back out the other side of the room.
Speaker 6: When our team comes in the room, they're supposed to
Speaker 6: watch us flip all those bags because it's still theirs
Speaker 6: at this point. And once we do that, we'll bring
Speaker 6: the work in. But when we transfer work back out
Speaker 6: to them, same process happens. We go in the room,
Speaker 6: we drop off the currency, we come out. They come in,
Speaker 6: so we all need to be able to see through
Speaker 6: the glass of the transfer process happening.
Speaker 2: All of these security rules apply to employees too.
Speaker 4: People wear smocks, there are no pockets when they go in.
Speaker 4: The colors indicate who's doing what role. And we have
Speaker 4: very very good hygiene in an accounting.
Speaker 1: Sense, and it's a tough job. Cash, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: is pretty we have you when you're piling up millions
Speaker 1: of bills, millions of physical bills. The Chicago FED process
Speaker 1: is something like five point five million pieces a day,
Speaker 1: and the actual currency value of that can be higher
Speaker 1: depending on the denomination of the notes.
Speaker 2: Once the money comes into the FED, the cash is
Speaker 2: brought into a receiving room, which is down another floor
Speaker 2: of the basement. This room looks very similar to the
Speaker 2: transfer room.
Speaker 1: And getting cash into the FED is just the first
Speaker 1: part of this process.
Speaker 6: We would now open the bags and make sure we
Speaker 6: have the correct amount of bundles in each bag. And
Speaker 6: a bundle, as I'll point out, is what you see
Speaker 6: in these containers. They look like little bricks.
Speaker 2: It like a brick of cash, like a brick of.
Speaker 6: Cash, and it is ten straps of one hundred notes,
Speaker 6: so one thousand notes per bundle or brick as it
Speaker 6: looks like. And so we open those deposits up, we
Speaker 6: make sure we have the correct number of bundles, and
Speaker 6: this is where we're entering in the deposit ticket, and
Speaker 6: we're making sure that all of the account is correct
Speaker 6: at the bundle level and then all of the work
Speaker 6: out of these rooms gets stored by denomination into containers
Speaker 6: where they will be stored in vaults until it's time
Speaker 6: for their piece count verification.
Speaker 2: We make our way through more long, stretching hallways until
Speaker 2: we get to a room where there are a couple
Speaker 2: of workers sorting through a bunch of cash, and most strikingly,
Speaker 2: a big machine that takes up most of the room
Speaker 2: with a computer on the left side and stacks of
Speaker 2: money neatly sitting on top of the tables. They call
Speaker 2: this a high speed room.
Speaker 4: And what's specifically and.
Speaker 2: That's the sound of cash being that is hard measured.
Speaker 6: That is the sound of the currency going into the machine,
Speaker 6: and it's singling those notes. So there's stacks of hundreds, right,
Speaker 6: they're going into that machine and they're kind of getting
Speaker 6: stacked on a rake, and it is really pulling those
Speaker 6: notes at rapid pace and then sending them singly one
Speaker 6: by one through the machines.
Speaker 1: So it's not quite fed money intergo burr, but it
Speaker 1: is a high speed money processor go burr.
Speaker 2: Some people are going to be disappointed that the FED
Speaker 2: is not literally printing the cash.
Speaker 6: Certainly, we're imaging every strap that comes in here on
Speaker 6: the currency, so that information relates back to the banks
Speaker 6: that's sent it in, so we have that information. If
Speaker 6: there's any disputes, we certainly send that out to our
Speaker 6: financial institutions. The machine will cut the straps off and
Speaker 6: then take each individual note, run it through our sensors,
Speaker 6: and it will make rapid decisions on whether it is
Speaker 6: fit for circulation or it would be shred or if
Speaker 6: it needs to have another look.
Speaker 1: So the sensors would be looking for things like if
Speaker 1: there's a mark on it, or a terror or that
Speaker 1: sort of thing.
Speaker 6: Correct, it's checking the fitness level, so is it clean,
Speaker 6: is it soiled. It's checking the authenticity of it. It
Speaker 6: is checking that it's the correct denomination. So it's looking
Speaker 6: at all of those things very rapidly.
Speaker 2: Does human judgment ever come into this or can it
Speaker 2: just be one hundred percent determined?
Speaker 6: So any items that are rejected on the machine will
Speaker 6: go to a secondary process where the operators will handle
Speaker 6: notes by hand. They will feed them again through another
Speaker 6: set of sensors and it'll take that read. But the
Speaker 6: end determination on things like counterfeits are our staff are
Speaker 6: trained on counterfeits, they're tested on counterfeits, and they do
Speaker 6: make those decisions as they're looking at those notes. So
Speaker 6: as you can see the large machine we talked about
Speaker 6: here at the end of the machine, and this tube
Speaker 6: that's going up into the ceiling, you can see the
Speaker 6: fluttering in that clear window looks like a bank drive
Speaker 6: up tu more pharmacy tube. That's where the shreds are
Speaker 6: exiting our floor to go to our bricketder. That's what
Speaker 6: it sounds like when they don't roll straight.
Speaker 4: Notice the wall guards.
Speaker 6: We have our bumpers for a reason.
Speaker 1: What happens to all the shredded money? I know you
Speaker 1: sell some in like the gift shops.
Speaker 4: Well we give it a well give it away, Well.
Speaker 1: We definitely want some. But like what happens to the
Speaker 1: majority of it Here.
Speaker 6: It's sent out for recycling. Most FED offices send it
Speaker 6: out to be recycled.
Speaker 2: Recycled back into future bills.
Speaker 6: No, here it's turned into some sort of fuel. We
Speaker 6: send it out and at other feds it's different to
Speaker 6: know one of the fed's condos.
Speaker 2: Once the cash is all processed and sorted, it gets
Speaker 2: stored in the bank's vaults.
Speaker 1: And these vaults are huge. They look straight out of
Speaker 1: a movie, think Ocean's Eleven, but bigger.
Speaker 4: So as we locked it in, you got to lower
Speaker 4: the floor or the door cannot shut.
Speaker 2: Each door weighs like eighty thousand pounds and you have
Speaker 2: to drop the floor to actually be able to open
Speaker 2: and shut them. So you just sort of have envision that.
Speaker 4: If they tell you to keep your hands and arms
Speaker 4: inside the car at all times, you do it.
Speaker 7: In this one, the vaults are over one hundred years
Speaker 7: old now, and it took over two hundred and twenty
Speaker 7: trips to transfer the Chicago Fed's entire cash holdings from
Speaker 7: their previous location to this new site.
Speaker 2: You know, the wheel gets turning, relaxing in place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's got kind of a master and commander's ship
Speaker 4: wheel field to it.
Speaker 2: And what's the combination to a man, there's multiple. Now
Speaker 2: we turn the dials on the combination so that way
Speaker 2: it sets it back for the next business day, so
Speaker 2: no one could just come.
Speaker 7: In and open it.
Speaker 2: As we walk around these halls. Down deep in the basement,
Speaker 2: they're screens showing live streams of outside of the FED.
Speaker 2: Bill You could see the streets and sidewalks outside the bank.
Speaker 1: Why is that showing a video of the outside.
Speaker 6: So that is what we call the windows to the world, because,
Speaker 6: as Austin mentioned, we are in the basement and we
Speaker 6: want to know if it's raining, and instead of calling
Speaker 6: Austin to ask him if it's raining, we have our
Speaker 6: own windows.
Speaker 4: We don't have windows. We got a second basement, a
Speaker 4: third basement, and you want to know is it's sunny.
Speaker 6: Or Okay, So we're gonna come around the corner here
Speaker 6: and then we're gonna step inside. This is considered a
Speaker 6: working vault, so you follow me in.
Speaker 1: It's the vaults, oh my gosh.
Speaker 6: And so what we have in here are two more
Speaker 6: paying rooms, just like we talked about outside, and then
Speaker 6: this vault it has these working rooms and then we
Speaker 6: have inventory storage. You can see some of our leadership
Speaker 6: is in here doing some work right now. But this
Speaker 6: is where we have the new inventory stored, as well
Speaker 6: as some fit inventory and some of the orders that
Speaker 6: will go out tomorrow. Where the smell is.
Speaker 4: The strongest, right, Yeah, you just smell that smell.
Speaker 3: This is a fresh money.
Speaker 4: That's fresh money.
Speaker 1: The smell fresh money in the morning.
Speaker 2: This is probably what I remember most about the experience,
Speaker 2: the smell of new money. This is where the FED
Speaker 2: keeps bills ready for distribution to banks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a room with millions of dollars in it,
Speaker 1: that smell is strong. This is the room where you
Speaker 1: really get to appreciate the physical aspects of money, because,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, dollars aren't just green. When they're
Speaker 1: all stacked up, you start to see there's a whole
Speaker 1: range of colors in there. And of course there's that smell.
Speaker 4: It's a good smell.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it's funny for the longer you work here,
Speaker 6: there is a thing really about nose blind because oh,
Speaker 6: I've heard you. You don't really pick it up as
Speaker 6: much anymore as our visitors are always like, what is
Speaker 6: that smell?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I went to the bureau engraving and printing. One of
Speaker 4: my quests was where does this smell? Command is it?
Speaker 4: The paper is in the wood and there are big
Speaker 4: buckets of the green ink, and.
Speaker 3: I to go.
Speaker 4: I was like, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's the smell.
Speaker 1: And this room is where the fit money, All the
Speaker 1: stuff that's been processed by the high speed machine gets
Speaker 1: paid out chines.
Speaker 6: That machine creates fit inventory, and that's on the right
Speaker 6: side of the room. Here on the left side of
Speaker 6: the room. Are there orders that they're going to be
Speaker 6: paying out tomorrow, So our allocator will pull the orders
Speaker 6: like a grocery list. Those orders get downloaded. We have
Speaker 6: a list of how many bundles they want of each denomination.
Speaker 6: We'll fill it like a grocery list. They'll put the
Speaker 6: inventory on the table and then the verifier will confirm
Speaker 6: blindly that count will enter that work in. Once that
Speaker 6: count is balanced, they will bag it and tag it,
Speaker 6: put into their containers by armored carrier, and then that
Speaker 6: work get stored in the vaults overnight and tomorrow will
Speaker 6: be taking it up to where we do our transfer process.
Speaker 4: Mike will have the exact numbers. But we pay out
Speaker 4: probably one hundred forty million.
Speaker 5: A day, hundred thirty five million a day, one hundred.
Speaker 4: Thirty five million a day, and we take in one
Speaker 4: hundred million or nineteen one hundred nineteen million a day.
Speaker 4: And then you say, wait a minute, how how can
Speaker 4: you pay out more than Again, it is because we
Speaker 4: get new money shipped in from Bureau of Graving and Printing.
Speaker 1: And it all comes full circle. The Bureau of Engraving
Speaker 1: and Printing, which has facilities in Washington, d c and
Speaker 1: fort Worth prints the money. They ship it to the
Speaker 1: reserve banks, where this whole process takes place, and then
Speaker 1: those bills go out to banks ATMs or wherever you're
Speaker 1: getting your cash money.
Speaker 2: The life cycle of a bill is pretty interesting.
Speaker 4: That's where the money is printed. They put it on pallets,
Speaker 4: They ship it to the reserve banks, and we receive
Speaker 4: it and you'll see it. It'll circulate for a few times.
Speaker 4: It will come back to the FED for processing. As
Speaker 4: it gets spent. They it goes to a bank. The
Speaker 4: bank puts it in the positi. They'll send it to
Speaker 4: us and say we got too much currency credit. Our
Speaker 4: deposit account. Will count it, run it through the high
Speaker 4: speed machine. If it's too dirty, will shred it. If
Speaker 4: it's fine, we'll bundle it up, put it in a package,
Speaker 4: and send it out to the next bank that needs
Speaker 4: more cash for their ATM. And that's kind of the cycle.
Speaker 4: The money comes in, gets stuck in the vault, goes
Speaker 4: out the next day or whenever people want it, and
Speaker 4: it's supplemented by the new money that comes from bureau
Speaker 4: engraving and printing.
Speaker 5: In terms of a life span of a dollar bill
Speaker 5: or currency, it ranges somewhere from the one dollar bill.
Speaker 5: I think last an average is six point six years
Speaker 5: out in circulation versus as you can imagine, the one
Speaker 5: hundred dollar bill less used probably more of those people
Speaker 5: to keep it in their homes under mattresses or whatever.
Speaker 5: That circulates every twenty two point nine years, So quite
Speaker 5: a bit of difference, but it varies based on the denomination.
Speaker 2: There's supposed to be a strip. Yeah, you can.
Speaker 4: Say it's green. If you put the UV light right
Speaker 4: up against it, it gets brighter. But there's a green strip.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hope. We end our tour at the Chicago Fed's
Speaker 1: Money Museum, which is both fun and even though it's
Speaker 1: about money, it's actually free to enter and you can
Speaker 1: learn even more about cash.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So if you're ever wondering which of the twelve Fed
Speaker 2: banks your money comes from, if you look at the bill,
Speaker 2: you see a big letter printed on each note on
Speaker 2: a one dollar bill, it's just to the left of
Speaker 2: George Washington.
Speaker 4: F Who's f that's Atlanta. This is Atlanta money. No wonder,
Speaker 4: it's not no wonder, it's not there. So you can
Speaker 4: see the in the corner that's the equivalent of the G.
Speaker 4: They don't want to. So B would be the second district,
Speaker 4: that'd be in New York. C C would be third district.
Speaker 4: So is that Philadelphia? I think it might be Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Each letter corresponds to the regional Fed that it passed through.
Speaker 2: So if you're wondering what the Chicago Fed is, that's
Speaker 2: G that's Chicago money. So the Chicago Fed will put
Speaker 2: in an order with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Speaker 2: for new cash, and that money will be made and
Speaker 2: sent to the Chicago Fed.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, Joe, I will never look
Speaker 1: at cash the same way again. I will annoy everyone
Speaker 1: that I know by telling them which Fed, bank or
Speaker 1: money came from.
Speaker 2: And with that, our tour comes to an end and
Speaker 2: we're thrown back out into the real cashless world and
Speaker 2: we are blinded by the sun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we learned a lot. And how many people
Speaker 1: actually get to say they've seen billions of dollars in
Speaker 1: cash without doing something illegal?
Speaker 2: All right, Tracy, I am ready for my waffles and
Speaker 2: dance party that let's go.
Speaker 1: Special Thanks to Austin Goolsby, Mike Kepler, Amy Alvarado, Mark Peters,
Speaker 1: and the staff at the Cash Operations Department of the
Speaker 1: Chicago Fed.
Speaker 2: This special look aside How the fit Stash is Cash
Speaker 2: was written by Tracy Alloway and Carmen Rodriguez. I'm Jill
Speaker 2: Wisenthal and together with Tracy, we co host the Odlots podcast.
Speaker 2: Carmen produced this episode with the help of dash El
Speaker 2: Bennett and Cal Brooks. Blake Maples is our sound engineer.
Speaker 2: Brendan Newnam is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is the
Speaker 2: head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this special Odlots episode, then please leave
Speaker 1: us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Not in Ins