Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. So, Tracy, one
Speaker 1: of the big themes and economics this year has been
Speaker 1: this idea of sort of you know, you see it
Speaker 1: at the national level, of sort of local reliance. Are
Speaker 1: the President talks about buying American and how that's a value.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of interesting because this idea of like
Speaker 1: buying local or buying American, it's a it's an idea
Speaker 1: that sort of transcends traditional sort of a political viewpoints. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, So everyone wants well, it feels like everyone
Speaker 1: kind of wants to look inward right now, at least economically.
Speaker 1: And when we think about that, I guess on a
Speaker 1: global basis, a lot of people tend to get outraged,
Speaker 1: you know, the end of globalization, less free trade. But
Speaker 1: it's funny because when you look at it on a
Speaker 1: smaller basis, the idea of buy local is kind of
Speaker 1: a cugly concept, right, Yeah, it seems like buying local
Speaker 1: is one of those things that economists who teach or
Speaker 1: academic economists say, oh, it's a bad idea, and free
Speaker 1: trade is what's most wealth maximizing, and it really shouldn't
Speaker 1: matter where you get it from as long as the
Speaker 1: cheapest and best quality. But it feels like people always
Speaker 1: have this sort of intuition about it and and some
Speaker 1: level of another, whether it's sort of more protectionist, more
Speaker 1: right wing, whether it's more left wing, sort of buy
Speaker 1: from the local farmer. There's a lot of people seem
Speaker 1: to have some sort of moral intuition relating to buying
Speaker 1: local that sort of conflicts a little bit with what
Speaker 1: the you know, the proper economics literature would say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really funny tension in economics, isn't it. Why
Speaker 1: Why are we talking about this? I'm glad you asked,
Speaker 1: because today we're going to um combine this topic of
Speaker 1: buying local with another favorite topic of the Odd Lots podcast,
Speaker 1: which is sort of alternative currencies and the nature of
Speaker 1: money and stuff like that, because we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about something called birk Shares, like Berkshire exactly right.
Speaker 1: It's um the local currency, or it's a local currency
Speaker 1: that was launched in the Berkshires, which is a sort
Speaker 1: of well known region in western Massachusetts, and it's a
Speaker 1: local currency for a specific region. In a specific state.
Speaker 1: It's super local exactly right, a hyper local currency. It's
Speaker 1: been around a little over ten years, I think. And
Speaker 1: today on the show we have Ellis Maggio I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna call her. She's sort of like the Federal Reserve
Speaker 1: chair of the Janet yelling of Berkshares. So there's this currency,
Speaker 1: birk Shares. She's the ecutive director of it. She's also
Speaker 1: at the Center for New Economics, and she's going to
Speaker 1: join us and we're going to talk about what she
Speaker 1: and others have learned in launching the sort of how
Speaker 1: it works this own regional currency. All right, I guess
Speaker 1: we'll have to ask her about the elusive wage growth
Speaker 1: in the Berkshires as well. Let's get right to it. Elis,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So let's just answer the first obvious question for people
Speaker 1: are what are Berkshires. Well, you've described it pretty well.
Speaker 1: Berkshairs are a local currency that are only used in
Speaker 1: the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, and their paper currency. They
Speaker 1: have really beautiful design by John isaacs Um that features
Speaker 1: local heroes on the front and local artwork on the back.
Speaker 1: So we celebrate people who are associated with the Berkshire
Speaker 1: Is in some way who have done important things, including
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell and Herman Melville and W. E. B. Du Bois,
Speaker 1: but also a Stockbridge Mohican and Robin van And who
Speaker 1: started the first c s A in the country. Now
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the economics and all that
Speaker 1: and the monetary policy of Berkshares, but before I do,
Speaker 1: I don't want to forget another question, because it's something
Speaker 1: we overlook a lot. It's interesting that you immediately talked
Speaker 1: about the designs on the money, because when people talk
Speaker 1: about money from a sort of economic or monetary policy standpoint,
Speaker 1: but no one really ever talks about the designs on money.
Speaker 1: But it's always there. Every country has always put a
Speaker 1: lot of pride into honoring people on their money money,
Speaker 1: and no country has ever just had like a sort
Speaker 1: of blank token that doesn't represent anything. Part of what
Speaker 1: makes the currency work is sort of this sort of
Speaker 1: uh uh, this sort of mythical way, you know, we
Speaker 1: we imprint on it important symbols. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: symbol and it's something that you have in your hand
Speaker 1: every day, so why not make it mean something, um
Speaker 1: that you care about and so we tried to. We
Speaker 1: took very good care to make sure that berk shares
Speaker 1: were beautiful and it would be something that people could
Speaker 1: take pride in using and also just be intrigued by
Speaker 1: and attracted to. And so I think that we were.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that they are so beautiful because it
Speaker 1: makes it so much easier to talk about. And UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's something that we've always done, but I
Speaker 1: think it's also in a longer tradition of um of
Speaker 1: local currencies in this country. We've actually had local currencies before,
Speaker 1: and UM, there were That's why we have such things
Speaker 1: as bank notes. That's why we know them as bank notes,
Speaker 1: because banks used to issue their own currencies and they
Speaker 1: often had symbols on them of the local industry or
Speaker 1: locally significant people. UM. So we're kind of touching on
Speaker 1: a long history here. So I'm going to ask the
Speaker 1: basic question then, UM, walk us through exactly what the
Speaker 1: thinking was behind launching this beautifully designed currency and how
Speaker 1: exactly it works, because I mean, I know there's a
Speaker 1: long history of local currencies in the US, but there
Speaker 1: aren't that many around nowadays, right. UM, Well, we'll start
Speaker 1: with how it works, so you can go to any
Speaker 1: of sixteen branches of four different banks in this area
Speaker 1: all the way from Sheffield and Great Barrington, Massachusetts up
Speaker 1: to North Adams and Williams Williamstown, Massachusetts, which is from
Speaker 1: the south to the north of of Berkshire County UM
Speaker 1: and you can walk into one of these banks. They're
Speaker 1: all community banks, so they're pretty small and they're focused
Speaker 1: on this area, and you can change your dollar into berkshares.
Speaker 1: Sos will get you in Berkshire and then you can
Speaker 1: take that Berkshire and spend it in the local economy.
Speaker 1: There are four hundred participating businesses throughout the region, so
Speaker 1: you can spend your work shares with any of those
Speaker 1: businesses as if they were dollars, which means that if
Speaker 1: you're the one who goes to the bank to get
Speaker 1: birk shares, then you are getting a five percent discount
Speaker 1: when you spend them. And then it's on the other
Speaker 1: end if you wanted to take your berk shares back
Speaker 1: to the bank, you could, you would only gets per berkeshare,
Speaker 1: So it's a disincentive for leaving the system and an
Speaker 1: incentive for starting to use berkshares. And I think there's
Speaker 1: an example on your website that makes it very clear.
Speaker 1: But let's say I know I want to go out
Speaker 1: and have a nice dinner that's cost gonna cost me
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. I buy a hundred dollars worth of
Speaker 1: berk shares and go out and buy the hundred dollar dinner.
Speaker 1: The participating businesses commit to accepting them at a one
Speaker 1: to one exchange rate, and then they take they can
Speaker 1: then re cycle them back into normal US dollars. But
Speaker 1: in a sense, it's a way for them to give
Speaker 1: a five percent discount to people who have, you know,
Speaker 1: committed to shopping and eating and doing business locally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is UM, And then if they wanted to, they
Speaker 1: could keep spending their berkshares. That's actually the ideal situation
Speaker 1: where they would take the hundred birk shares that you
Speaker 1: spent with them, and they would turn around to their
Speaker 1: suppliers and spend some birk shares with them, so that
Speaker 1: it keeps the money circulating in this area with other
Speaker 1: local suppliers. And it's already been shown that UM local
Speaker 1: locally owned businesses actually choose to spend their money with
Speaker 1: other locally owned businesses much more than any kind of
Speaker 1: chain or corporate UM box store would. So this is
Speaker 1: kind of reinforcing that um what what people call the
Speaker 1: local multiplier effect and making it even stronger. Already, if
Speaker 1: if you're just dealing with dollars, you're one dollar that
Speaker 1: you bend in a locally owned retail store is going
Speaker 1: to circulate four times more in a locally local economy,
Speaker 1: spend your one dollar spent in a chain store. So already,
Speaker 1: with dollars you you can make a big difference spending locally.
Speaker 1: But with birk shares, we try to go to the
Speaker 1: next level and also build in a whole educational and
Speaker 1: symbolic element to it. So we kind of touched on
Speaker 1: this in the intro. But the idea here is to
Speaker 1: amplify that local multiplier effect and get more money circulating
Speaker 1: around your particular region. But do you ever get like,
Speaker 1: it sounds really great, you're boosting local businesses, But do
Speaker 1: you ever get people say in the in the next
Speaker 1: stay over complaining about the local currency and the fact
Speaker 1: that they you know, can't get in on it, or
Speaker 1: it's limiting business in some way. Oh I don't think so, um,
Speaker 1: because we don't really limit birk shares to state lines. UM.
Speaker 1: Our banks right now are all in Massachusetts, UM, but
Speaker 1: we have businesses over in New York State, in Columbia County, UM,
Speaker 1: and a little bit into UM maybe into Vermont but
Speaker 1: probably not that much, but a little bit into Connecticut.
Speaker 1: So we kind of wanted to be more organic UM
Speaker 1: and follow the lines of the Berkshire economy, and with
Speaker 1: the Berkshire economy doesn't follow necessarily UM state lines. So
Speaker 1: if you have business with somebody across the state, across
Speaker 1: the line in New York State, UM, and they want
Speaker 1: to take berkshares from you, then that's fine with us.
Speaker 1: We don't get involved. We think that you should just
Speaker 1: do what makes sense for your business, all right. I
Speaker 1: want to really get into the nitty gritty about the
Speaker 1: mechanics of this. So one of one question I have
Speaker 1: is how do you guarantee that there is always the
Speaker 1: money to redeem your berkshares for cents on the dollar?
Speaker 1: I mean, what is the institutional setup you have in
Speaker 1: place to guarantee that the amount of money available for
Speaker 1: redemption is always perfectly matched with the amount of burk
Speaker 1: shares out in circulation. So ten years ago, when we
Speaker 1: started burk Shares. We actually we turned to the bank
Speaker 1: branch managers to help us figure out those mechanics because
Speaker 1: we're not community bankers, but we really wanted to work
Speaker 1: with our community banks and we didn't want to create
Speaker 1: a local currency that cut them out of the picture
Speaker 1: because they are just as important as the locally owned
Speaker 1: businesses in our local economy. So we turned to them.
Speaker 1: And we actually have a long history of the Schumacher
Speaker 1: Center for New Economics UM has kind of fostered local
Speaker 1: economy projects UM local currencies in this region, and there
Speaker 1: have been experiments here over the course of the last
Speaker 1: thirty five plus years UM, and that's kind of what
Speaker 1: led up to berk Shares as they are now. But
Speaker 1: when we started burk Shares, we turned to those branch
Speaker 1: managers and we said, how would it work for you?
Speaker 1: What would be the best system, and they came up
Speaker 1: with a system we have, which is that Berkshares Incorporated
Speaker 1: has a checking account with each different branch that has
Speaker 1: birk shares for exchange available for exchange, and UM, when
Speaker 1: you go with your dollars to get your hundred birk shares,
Speaker 1: those go into that checking account owned by birk Shares, Inc.
Speaker 1: And they sit there and they're backing the hundred berkshares
Speaker 1: that come out and UM that happens at any of
Speaker 1: the branches that are involved, and we just keep an
Speaker 1: eye on those balances because we own all of them.
Speaker 1: So we get regular checking account statements every month UM,
Speaker 1: and we have online banking and we can check those
Speaker 1: accounts and make sure that none of them fall too
Speaker 1: low or anything. But generally they serve as the UM.
Speaker 1: They basically are allowing for liquidity so that you could
Speaker 1: go back and get your change of berkshares back into
Speaker 1: dollars at any of those branches. So Joe joked that
Speaker 1: you were kind of like the Janet Yellen for berk shares.
Speaker 1: Is that true? Like, to what extent does this currency
Speaker 1: mimic an actual currency like the US dollar? And I
Speaker 1: know it's pegged at the moment um to a hundred.
Speaker 1: Have you ever, for instance, considered deep hagging it. No,
Speaker 1: it's a good question, UM, we have so kind of
Speaker 1: the way that berkshares differs from a national currency is
Speaker 1: is exactly the way we want to differ. We want
Speaker 1: to be a local, place based, nonprofit issuer of currency
Speaker 1: UM with an open membership and democratic governance. So anybody
Speaker 1: who lives here can become a member of berk Shares
Speaker 1: for birk Shares or twenty five dollars a year. Those
Speaker 1: membership dues will give you are right to vote at
Speaker 1: the annual meeting, and you could run for the board
Speaker 1: or you could vote for the board. So the Board
Speaker 1: of Directors has chosen from among residents of the Berkshires.
Speaker 1: By residents of the Berkshires, the Board of Directors then
Speaker 1: gets to make decisions about the currency. Of course, the
Speaker 1: federal Reserve and the national national currency is meant to
Speaker 1: be in some respect governed by the people of the
Speaker 1: United States, but it's definitely far beyond our reach to
Speaker 1: make very many decisions about our currency or about monetary policy.
Speaker 1: So we're trying to create another system, another layer that
Speaker 1: isn't going to ever replace the dollar, but that's going
Speaker 1: to be a currency where we have a lot more
Speaker 1: say at the local level, and we can create a
Speaker 1: currency that will respond to local conditions uh in a
Speaker 1: more agile way and basically fill in gaps in the
Speaker 1: local economy and use local knowledge to do that. So
Speaker 1: that's what the structure birk Shares looks like. And so
Speaker 1: I work with the Board of Directors of berk Shares
Speaker 1: and the board of directors is elected by UM, the
Speaker 1: members of the organization. And so I guess that's kind
Speaker 1: of how it works structurally. And then what else? What
Speaker 1: was there your other part of your question? I was asking,
Speaker 1: have you ever considered depegging it, you know, in times
Speaker 1: of economic crises or something. Yeah, well, that is what
Speaker 1: we're kind of. We're trying to create another level of
Speaker 1: like what you guys were saying earlier, resilience at the
Speaker 1: local level, so that UM we have a tool. We
Speaker 1: think of Birkshares as a tool for community self reliance
Speaker 1: and that way, the Board of Directors could, working with
Speaker 1: our partner banks and businesses, make a decision to change
Speaker 1: the exchange rate. And we actually have done that. We
Speaker 1: started off with ninety cents to the dollar to the
Speaker 1: burkeshare UM and now it's to the birchtry. That was
Speaker 1: a big deal to change it. But the Board of
Speaker 1: Directors decided to do that UM based on feedback we got.
Speaker 1: And so we could in the long run decide to
Speaker 1: unpeg from the dollar if we wanted to, and UM
Speaker 1: that would actually be going more in the direction of
Speaker 1: those local currencies we were talking about before, because um,
Speaker 1: those local currencies weren't really tied to other currencies. They
Speaker 1: were kind of based on They were issued based on
Speaker 1: productive loans that the banks would make too local businesses.
Speaker 1: So the amount of money going out into the local
Speaker 1: community from the bank would be based on the need
Speaker 1: for that that capital by local businesses, and the basically
Speaker 1: would be backed by the future production of those local businesses.
Speaker 1: So the money they were issuing was backed by future
Speaker 1: production of goods and services in the local economy. And
Speaker 1: if we were to move in that direction, which we
Speaker 1: actually aspire to do, um, then we would be moving
Speaker 1: towards the currency that was not backed so much by
Speaker 1: the dollar, but backed by production of goods and services
Speaker 1: in the local local economy. Here, that's cool, all right,
Speaker 1: Here's a here's a cynical question. There's a fot So
Speaker 1: at one point there was a ten cent spread between
Speaker 1: the amount data costs to buy them and the amount
Speaker 1: at a cost to redeem them. Has anyone ever tried
Speaker 1: to game it by, say, you know, offering offering establishments
Speaker 1: for their berk shares or nine cents or anything like
Speaker 1: that an attempt to profit or arbitrage away that that
Speaker 1: bid ask spread Joe, You're always looking for the arbitrage everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone was thinking it. Who's listening to this?
Speaker 1: So we do UM so we have agreements with our
Speaker 1: banks about the way that the exchange takes place. So
Speaker 1: the banks all know that the UM the exchange rate
Speaker 1: iss per Berke share, and that's kind of baked in
Speaker 1: and we when we changed that, we had to do
Speaker 1: it in secret, so it had to be an overnight
Speaker 1: shift where we created all new publicity materials and everything,
Speaker 1: and we trained the bank tellers and everything had to
Speaker 1: happen in secret so that people couldn't um try to
Speaker 1: profit off of that. Um So it is a big
Speaker 1: that would be a big, a big deal to change
Speaker 1: the exchange rate and it was UM but so far
Speaker 1: nobody can really do that because the bank tellers know
Speaker 1: that at the bank the exchange rates per Berke share.
Speaker 1: What people do on their own is not our business.
Speaker 1: Like you, I've gone to Europe and people have traded
Speaker 1: me euros for Berk shares and it's definitely been in
Speaker 1: my favor and I was happy to do that. Um So,
Speaker 1: whatever that that's kind of nobody really knows. It's basically
Speaker 1: up to the value that you place on the birk share.
Speaker 1: UM I have a similar question, I guess, but um like,
Speaker 1: has anyone ever tried to counterfeit Berkshire's Do you get
Speaker 1: the same sorts of issues that we see in national currencies. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: we have had. We're kind of proud to say that
Speaker 1: we had one attempt at counterfeit because we think that's
Speaker 1: the highest form of flattery. We don't want it to
Speaker 1: happen again. But it is really hard to counterfeit birk
Speaker 1: shares because they are UM. They're printed on extremely high
Speaker 1: quality currency paper with high quality printing done by Excelsior
Speaker 1: Printing in North Adams and UM with very intricate design.
Speaker 1: So it would be very hard to successfully counterfeit a Berkshire.
Speaker 1: And we have, uh, we've trained the cashiers at some
Speaker 1: of the bigger establishments that take berkshares to check for
Speaker 1: real birk shares, and it's it's pretty easy to spot
Speaker 1: a fake one, and we've only had happen once one
Speaker 1: Bill And it's such a small community really that it
Speaker 1: would be it would be pretty silly to try to
Speaker 1: counterfeit of Berkshire, because if you got caught, your name
Speaker 1: would be mud. So it's been around, you launched it
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six. So what are the big
Speaker 1: lessons you've learned? What are some of the takeaways that
Speaker 1: you've seen in terms of how this affects the local economy.
Speaker 1: If they if say there are two competing family restaurants
Speaker 1: and one excepts birk shares and the other one doesn't,
Speaker 1: do you notice do they notice a difference in their um,
Speaker 1: you know, how they do business wise? Like, what are
Speaker 1: some of the you know, the big results and takeaways
Speaker 1: you've seen from this project. Well, I think that the
Speaker 1: educational value is um not to be understated, because um,
Speaker 1: we just it gets people thinking about the local economy
Speaker 1: and local businesses in a way that we don't really
Speaker 1: do very often normally, because we just kind of look
Speaker 1: for the most convenient way, or we look for the
Speaker 1: um the cheapest solution to what we need, and we
Speaker 1: don't always take into account the more human aspect and
Speaker 1: the effects on our environment of our spending choices. So
Speaker 1: birkshires are a tool that can be in everybody's wallet
Speaker 1: and that are very kind of flashy and they've been
Speaker 1: a great way to get conversations going. And so we've
Speaker 1: built out, just in the last year, we've built out,
Speaker 1: or the last two years, we've built out an educational
Speaker 1: program for young people that helps them write business plans.
Speaker 1: We brought in mentors for that program. UM and Birkshires
Speaker 1: are kind of like the the the little tool that
Speaker 1: gets people in the door and kind of flips the
Speaker 1: switch to get them thinking about these things. And so
Speaker 1: I think that the we always need to remember that
Speaker 1: that it's not just a monetary tool, but that it's
Speaker 1: a it's an educational tool, so we have to think
Speaker 1: of ourselves as educators. And then I think beyond that,
Speaker 1: it's a way of kind of seeing our region and
Speaker 1: giving ourselves an identity that has to do with the economy.
Speaker 1: And to think about a regional economy is something that
Speaker 1: Jane Jacobs called for UM and that Schumacher talked about.
Speaker 1: But it's not in our general economics text books necessarily,
Speaker 1: it's not in the mainstream UM way of thinking, and
Speaker 1: UM I think it's kind of necessary now. So it
Speaker 1: has sparked really good conversations at our regional Economic Development
Speaker 1: UM organizations, and I think that's really valuable. And then
Speaker 1: it's the other aspect of it is that it's something
Speaker 1: that everybody could have in their pockets. So it's not
Speaker 1: like it's not something that only the people that know
Speaker 1: about economics can have their hands on. It's something that
Speaker 1: middle schoolers can look at and use, it's something that
Speaker 1: retirees can use. It's people who of all different types
Speaker 1: who can then have a say in the local economy
Speaker 1: so that we're not leaving it up to the experts.
Speaker 1: We're kind of all becoming economists. So that's the thing
Speaker 1: that really gets me most excited about Berkshires, And I
Speaker 1: think it's something that we kind of need because we
Speaker 1: don't want to just leave it up to the the
Speaker 1: experts because it's not necessarily working for all of us.
Speaker 1: So to take it back and kind of have our
Speaker 1: hands on it and have a say is really important
Speaker 1: at this point. And I think that to the Buddhist economics,
Speaker 1: yeah conversation. As you were saying that, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about exactly that a recent a recent episode on Buddhist
Speaker 1: economics and the sort of other values that we don't
Speaker 1: traditionally talk about in economics conversations, but that I think
Speaker 1: as we were saying the beginning, people have some sort
Speaker 1: of intuitive, intuitive sense that they're important. Yeah, the idea
Speaker 1: that morals have a place in economics is I think
Speaker 1: a really important concept, but it's not something that's that's
Speaker 1: generally talked about. So I think that thinking about how, um,
Speaker 1: how the economy is not something that just happens to us.
Speaker 1: It's something that we should be shaping in the way
Speaker 1: that aligns with our values. And if our values are two,
Speaker 1: take care of each other, take care of ourselves and
Speaker 1: um have livelihoods that are really fulfilling, and trying to
Speaker 1: find ways that more people can have those livelihoods, and
Speaker 1: then we need to take control because really, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of goes back to just the most basic understanding
Speaker 1: of borkshares is that they're a way of spending your
Speaker 1: money with locally owned businesses. And the key there is
Speaker 1: locally owned, So who owns the business and who's benefiting
Speaker 1: from the wealth of that business or the money that
Speaker 1: you're spending with that business. Real quickly, do you have
Speaker 1: a public figure on the number of berkshire is currently
Speaker 1: in circulation? Yeah, we have because we have all those
Speaker 1: bank accounts, um the checking accounts that serve as exchange accounts. UM,
Speaker 1: we can tell exactly how many Birkshares are out there,
Speaker 1: and there are about a hundred and forty thousand birk
Speaker 1: Shares out of the banks UM in a region of
Speaker 1: about a hundred and thirty thousand people. So everyone, everyone,
Speaker 1: at least on average, everyone has about one at least one.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of We've only just recently reached into
Speaker 1: the northern part of Berkshire County because for a long
Speaker 1: time all of the participating banks were in southern Berkshire County,
Speaker 1: which is a region of about people. All Right, Alias
Speaker 1: Maggio from the Schumacher Center of New Economics and the
Speaker 1: executive director of Berkshares, really really appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 1: Fascinating conversation. Thanks so much for having me, Tracy. I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that conversation because I love especially that last
Speaker 1: answer about sort of taking these abstract concepts that we
Speaker 1: have in economics and markets and then doing a project
Speaker 1: or an experiment that actually makes it real and tangible
Speaker 1: and sort of d abstracts it, so to speak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I liked her point of about shaping the economy
Speaker 1: towards our values as well, because you do often get
Speaker 1: the sense that the economy is just something that exists
Speaker 1: and we have no control over it. But that said, like,
Speaker 1: there are a couple things here that kind of not
Speaker 1: concern me, but I wonder about, Like one is, what
Speaker 1: would happen if everyone started their own local currencies, and
Speaker 1: like to how granular does monetary policy actually have to be? Like,
Speaker 1: I know, we talked about the Eurozone a lot, and
Speaker 1: the idea that a one size fits all currency doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily work for a place like Greece, But like if
Speaker 1: Greece got the drachma, would you have to have then
Speaker 1: a separate currency for Athens and a separate currency for
Speaker 1: like Micanos. I just wonder, like where do you stop? Well,
Speaker 1: one thing that sort of intrigues me about this experiment
Speaker 1: is that these sort of questions of free trade are
Speaker 1: obviously very divisive. And what seems nice about Burke shares
Speaker 1: is that it's totally voluntary. If you value this idea
Speaker 1: of buying local and you want to explicitly support local businesses,
Speaker 1: you can, but of course nobody is compelled to, and
Speaker 1: anyone can use normal dollars, and so as long as
Speaker 1: people trust that the currency will hold its value and
Speaker 1: that you know it's not going to collapse, or that
Speaker 1: you know it'll be roughly equally exchangeable with real dollars.
Speaker 1: Then I think it sort of provides a nice way
Speaker 1: of some people expressing their values towards one thing without
Speaker 1: you know, hurting the people who don't really care about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. People can use it the way they
Speaker 1: kind of want to. It's a nice option to have.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I wonder, um, do you think there's a
Speaker 1: market to be made and speculating on the future direction
Speaker 1: of shares? If you had a mole inside the board
Speaker 1: of directors for the next time they reprice Berk shares,
Speaker 1: you could probably make a lot of money. But I
Speaker 1: would I would probably feel guilty about doing that, to
Speaker 1: be honest. Yeah, I would not encourage any anyone to
Speaker 1: pursue that. Right, We do not recommend that path, all right,
Speaker 1: No insider trading on a small regional currencies in western Massachusetts. Place. Um.
Speaker 1: That was it for this edition of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joe. Why isn't thal You can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart, and you can
Speaker 1: follow Berkshires on Twitter at Berkshire's