>> and you're in "the stream." what do you do when the dollar isn't enough? you create your own. how local communities are taking mounters into their own hands. lisa fletcher is out on vacation, and we have latoya, our senior producer joining us, rocking that red jacket. and speaking of money, there are other words for it. cheddar, bread.

>> deniro. >> and local currency and crypto assurance. >> our community has a lot of questions about this. is local currency each legal? so we have on facebook: >> all right, keep tweeting, and la toy a. throughout the show, using#ajamstream. chapter when you lose trust in the dollar? from baltimore to south dakota, there are 100 local occurrences in the works, whether visual occurrences or coins, the goal is to reinvigorate local economies and foster pride. critics argue that community occurrences don't stand the test

of time. so can alternative occurrences sustain communities? laura aldredge, she's an economist who studies occurrences. berkshires, a local county in massachusetts. and laura, most viewers are probably wondering, in america, we have the currency, the almighty dollar, and is starting your own occurrence even legal? >> it's legal. if you listen to the part from the constitution that was read, it's illegal to create coins, but it's legal to create paper currency as long as it looks substantially different from the u.s. dollar. so you can't make local currency that looks just like the dollar or is similar to it, and as long as the dominations are equal to or greater than $1.

so you can't create a 50-cent bill. and the other key thing, the income that's earned off of that currency has to be claimed for irs purposes, so you can't use the local currency to avoid taxation, but as long as you follow the rules, it's legal. >> so at the local level. >> right, it can't be used for taxes. >> thank you for answering andrew's questions. is this a lame fad like lava lamps, and pet rocks, or is there deep historical roots here? >> there are historical roots that go way way back, but there's a recent trend that goes along. i think with the financial crisis, in 2007 and 2009 where people lost trust in the u.s. banks, and people have lost some of the trust they had in the dollar, but also, i think it goes hand-in-hand with the buy local movement that has been grown and seen in the past few

years. a lot of the local organizations that put forth these local occurrences believe strongly in the buy local movement and try to encourage people to buy local. >> there are 100 occurrences in circulation, and 10 states have proposed them. and communities are tweeting in, there might be pushback. >> scott says that he loves local currency and he says that i have more berk shares in my wallet than the dollars: how do we know what the currency is worth? laura, do you want to answer? >> well, most of the local occurrences are tied to the dollar, and one unit of the currency is equal to 1 dollar, so if you go to the grocery store that accepts the local currency and you want to buy a $5 gal of milk, you can pay in

dollars or the local currency, so you have to have a group of businesses that accept it. and that's where the difficulty can come in, encouraging both the groups and the producers and the suppliers that this is something that they should take part of. >> alice, you're from berkshire, massachusetts, and you've been using the berkshare, and what prompted you to use the local currency? >> it's an area in the eastern united states that is pretty far from the center of government. and we have a long history of taking care of our own problems, and we saw the the problem of chain stores coming in and taking over from locally owned stores, and berkshares are one way to identify the locally owned businesses and keep our money here so we can support all of the jobs and the tax bases here. >> brian just wrote in and

said: can you speak a little bit more on that, alex? >> they might not be a panacea, but they are a local tool in the region, so we don't have to wait around for government stens and berkshares are a non-profit organization, and it's democratically run, a board of directors run by the people of this region, and we can decide what our currency looks like, we can, with our occurrence, we can identify our local heroes and be landscaped that we take pride in. and we can support the businesses owned by the people

in our region who are employing people here and playing to our tax base. >> we just heard alex, but the currency is not regulated by the bank or the government. and how do you maintain oversight? this is where the negative side comes in from an economist's point of view. about 40% stays in the community. but if you buy at a big box store, only 13% stays, and there are real reasons why this is good for the community. but you don't have the protection that the u.s. dollar has. if you put your money in the bank, and most of you have seen that at the bank with all of the signs, that protects your money, so if, for some reason, your bank does go under, you would

get your money back, as long as you had $250,000 in your account. with the local currencies, you don't have that same protection, so i think they could be used for small purchases and for smaller transactions but as an economist, i wouldn't recommend someone putting a lot of their wealth into local occurrence. but on the website, it shows a guy who wants to stay in a hotel and you can get a 5% discount using the berkshares, and he uses his money to get the $100 to pay for the hotel. and he can get the discount and keep the money local. >> and there are 100 companies using it. but what happens when a local currency goes digital? coming up, the founder of mazza coin. how it could be a game changer

for native american reservations.

>> welcome back, and we're looking at alternative currencies to the dollar. coming out of lakota nation in south dakota, they're testing

the mazza coin. 70% live below the poverty line, despite the millions coming into the reservation, but mazza coin hopes to change that. you're in the second poorest county in the nation, and you could be lobbying for other things, education, and funding, but what triggered the idea for a currency? >> basically the need to raise the standard of living for the lakota people. you're very right when you say that 90% are below the poverty line. we have people in abandoned vehicles, and we have two-bedroom houses that have whole families. and this is unacceptable in america, native america in general.

and this is unacceptable and we need to find the solution. we're constantly relying on the department of interior and the federal government has proved ineffective, so the responsibility is ours. so i recognized that, just the ability for crypto currency to potentially change that. it's a brave new world for finance. and i look forward to having the lakota, not only the lakota nation, but all indigenous people in general to explore this brave new world. and see what crypto currency can do and prove the theory correct. >> speaking of a brave new world, the irs today said bitcoin is not currency and how is mazacoin different from bitcoin? >> it's zet aucoin, and it's

based on the same. we are being unique to ourselves. we're working on a comprehensive tax structure within the tribe's commercial code to build a tax base with crypto occurrences, and mazacoin obviously. but we talked about regulation oversight. and taxation is a fact of life. that's what goes to schools and roads. and it needs to be down. a tax structure. >> our community is fascinated by the mazacoin:

why is this so important to the success of mazacoin? >> because it does provide one more building block for sovereignty. what people don't understand, native americans are considered wards of the federal government. and we are basically federal property. we're the only ones on the planet that have this designation, and we need to free ourselves from that, and to do that, we have to establish certain things to augment and showcase our sovereignty. we already have a constitution, a unique culture and language and we have our own flag, and now we have our own currency. these are building blocks toward the eventual goal as a full

sovereign entity, and that's where we'll be able to build on that nation to nation relationship. and not just between the tribes and the federal government, but tribes and the foreign states like russia, the ukraine, spain, pakistan. i mean, think about this. when the issue that's happening in crimea, as a sovereign state, the tribes would have the unique ability to go there as completely neutral observers and help them northbound through that or help them facilitate a transfer of power, transfer of government, whatever ends up happening, but we would have the ability to be a neutral state to help facilitate this. >> all right, laura, i'm going to get you in this conversation. mazacoin might be the

switzerland of north america, but do you think that individuals and companies will invest in the mazacoin? >> i think that crypto occurrences is very interesting, and it's so new that i don't think so that congressmen know how to handle it or consumers or businesses know how they want to handle it. there are difficulties in this, and i have a question for emmet. i'm curious, if 97% of people live below the poverty line, i'm assuming that many of them don't have the high-tech equipment that they need for crypto occurrences or others and how do you handle that? >> that's so ironic. we have so few people with smart phones or tablets. technology is a base level. tablets are now so inexpensive,

anybody can get them. and mazacoin has it's own app, so you can have it on your tablet. you can go to the college center and get online. download standard windows as, and as far as the technology, you know, it's there. but it's only there at a base level. so i think by deploying it further, it really encourages people to build on that foundation. >> i want to get our on line community conversation in on this. they have been tweeting in a lot. >alot.

there's a lot about the heart of the currency and can you talk about that? >> one of the things that's unique is the fact that we have a virtual lack of everything as far as an economic base. you can't buy a tv in pine ridge. you can't buy clothing. about 85% of our goods and services come from off of the reservation. because you know, everybody has this misconception that the reservation is impoverished, which it is, but there's money there. and it comes in through the former, you know, the federal subsidies every month, welfare, child support, different social programs, the casino payroll,

and the tribal payroll. >> paiute, one question: it's a good question, what happens if mazacoin doesn't work? >> one of the things, the leadership and myself as the founder have to basically stand up and say, we tried it, it didn't work, what's next? i think it would be interesting if american leadership did the same thing. when was the last time president obama went on camera and said, i messed up, i take responsibility, let's go forward. but that's what's great about the crypto currency, really quick, they have been so supportive, when there is a problem, they band together and kind of a hive mind to figure out a solution for t and really quick, you mentioned before about oversight, i transferred, i moved part of our arrive to a

more secure drive, and within like 15 minutes, i had probably 100 emails and messages from all over of people asking me, hey, we're seeing movement from mazacoin, millions are being moved and what's going on? so within 15 minutes, the community provided it's own oversight to say, hey, we're noticing this, and what's going on, so the oversight is there, and again, we're giving power back to the people. >> well, paiute, today you and alice are inspiring the community members: members: and an inspiring community member joins us.

>> the local economy, introducing things like alternative currencies, and even bitcoin, you know, currencies and all of these other things, is really only trying to institute certain reforms, to mitigate the effects of all of the mess that we are in, and this is why i concluded that all of that stuff is no more helpful than rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, because this whole thing is going to come tumbling down. >> we're back looking at the local currency movement. that's larry chang, who wrote change of heart.

and we have tom mac on the other end of the currency life cycle. you've been trying to get a currency off the ground in new n new york and what's your question for our guest? >> we're trying to start a local currency called north country hours. the northern part of no,, between canada. and st. lawrence county is the second poorest in the state. so we were looking for ways to engage local activists as a way to promote global change. and so i have a question for alice. upcoming with local businesses to accept the currency. >> one of the first things that we did was form partnerships with local banks, and we're lucky enough to have five community banks here in the

berkshires, and they all participate in the berk share program. and they have storefronts on main street. everybody uses hem and knows the bankers and the bankers know everybody in the community and the business people. so that partnership is really fundamental to the success of berkshares, and it means that the overhead of berkshares itself is very low. and then that has been the key to how we have gained legitimacy with the wednesday community. >> latoya: alice. >> well, our berkshare currency is not meant to be devaluing the national currency or anything, but it's meant to be a

complimentary currency that can react to local conditions better than the national currency can. we're not looking to devalue it, but fill the gap that we see in the local communities. >> right, but the community is bringing up that we might have local consequences. steven notes: that's a mouthful. and laura, can you kind of break it down? >> that is a mouthful. these local currencies, like alice was just saying, they don't in any way compete with the national currency. the berkshares, from what i read, it has done a great job, 400 plus, and businesses at the

berkshires, and it's a local program. they're not trying to expand it nationally or even regionally. so i don't see right now it being a problem as far as competing with the u.s. dollar. it's more keeping the money local. problem is starting a new one really is getting from both sides, people who want to use the currency and people who won't accept it. if you don't have enough businesses that accept your currency, people don't want to exchange their dollars into whatever currency you're starting, so i think that the most important thing from the start is to get a good core of businesses that will participate. >> i'm assuming that was aimed at me? >> i guess i can say that

because it was named at mazacoin. if you have a coin, and you want to trade it in for mazacoin, we're going to be establishing walk up changes. a variety of crypto currencies, so if we try that with our casino operations, it's conceivable a person could come up and trade their bitcoins for mazacoin very seamlessly. if you win at the casino, you could be cashed out, or mazacoin or bitcoin. what we're talking about is the next generation of financial transactions. it's completely secure. the whole target pack. >> it doesn't happen with crypto currencies because there's no identification on there to get stolen. >> thanks to all of our guests

and the community for weighing in. the conversation always continues online. >> good evening, everyone, welcome to aljazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. lights out in washington state as rescuers search for the missing. and we take a closer look at what caused the disaster. warning to russia, president obama threatens more sanctions and refuses to recognize a russian crimea. healthcare mandate. companies offering contraception in their healthcare plan, and now the supreme court picks up that issue. homel