good. god i mean very little. good. i mean. crashing down in central russia leaving over twelve hundred people injured as building shook and windows smashed by the force of the blast. for the first time ever republican senators stall the confirmation process of a proposed u.s. secretary of defense demanding chuck hagel answer more questions. and the money troubles and belt tightening during the g. twenty meeting in moscow finance chiefs discussed the possibility of a currency war as well as the ongoing e.u. debt crisis. that's it for me but our team will have more headlines in around an

hour's time ticking up to then thom hartmann brings you the big picture thanks for watching. but i'm john are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture during the past four decades every single year is there a bit around ten countries experiencing some kind of financial or monetary crisis to turn into alternative clancy's help relieve some of the burden that nations are facing today and improve the global economic outlook alaska where our lives are and

jackie done in tonight's conversations with great minds also in her first senate banking committee meeting yesterday elizabeth warren was kicking butt and taking names as she hammered home the point that wall street banks need to be held accountable for their role in devastating our economy so why haven't the big banks been put to trial and punished for their role in america's financial collapse that and more into night's big picture rubble and nobody should have to wait in line for hours to vote because of the republican voter fraud which that's become a reality in america the talking heads of fox news that that's why explain in tonight's guilty. for tonight's conversations with great minds i'm joined by bernard leo tara and jackie done for art is an international expert in the design and implementation of

currency systems and a research fellow at the center for sustainable resources at the university of california berkeley and jackie is an award winning journalist from ireland fellow. good c.e.o. no it's a new resource an emerging global leader in helping entrepreneurs develop technologies and initiatives that restore the earth's equilibrium bernard reac year authors of the book re making money new currencies turn scarcity into prosperity and they rethinking money and they join me now in the studio welcome to you both thank you know and a great book rethinking money it's fact. it's somebody i know put put it blurred on the bag. and i set this up by pointing out that over the last forty years we've seen one hundred forty five major monetary or fiscal crises around the world. what's that what's at the core of this stuff for well he was only one looks at each crisis on its own and what's different about. what we're doing is but look what's

common. and actually the commonality is that we are officially trying to maintain the mop only of a culture of one type of currency created privately by the banking system and that system is not stable is systemic unstable we've been able to prove scientifically in peer reviewed articles in major journals but of course we've been thrilled so much in our branding that we need to do everything with a single currency thinking of another currency has to be crazy and what type of currency as in a few currency issued by central bank well it's not actually from a central bank it's you should privately by the banking system i mean under the supervision of a central bank there is money brought into being by debt but it's sickly. and jackie we just to start out with kind of the origin of money you know the story

we're one story we're told about the origin of money is that it was it was devised as a medium of exchange to reduce the what economists call the shoe leather cost of. and that a tie various times it's had intrinsic value or not attitudes or value basically been accounting system another model of money is that it came out of society needing to figure out a way to extract some little piece out of all the activity it was going on in society to maintain society what what is the source of money and why why should it matter what what what does what does money mean really. it's interesting question you bring up tom because money really lives in the space of an agreement it's new greenman to something as a medium big strange so like in a war situation cigarettes may become a medium of exchange that women's night homes may become an immediate exchange we did hear they did absolutely so it is whatever somebody agrees to accept as

a medium of exchange and why we have a monoculture has been our pointed out of by money is that governments accepted exclusively in the exchange in the payment of taxes so that gives the bank that money that you alluded to such prominence and that's that's the arguably society preceded money and society needed to figure out a way to extract some small piece from all the people all the all the portions of society that were that were engaging in commerce or any kind of practical idea but we must remember that the current system we have was quite brilliant because when it was introduced and actually you know it's a mental construct it's something that streamed up doesn't it as your mom probably said you know money does not grow in trees is not a thing of nature it is a human construct it is an agreement and it was during the industrial revolution that the common money that we used today as a dollar or

a euro the all the same type of money was the first time that it was possible to make money from money before then you either had to get it as. oil of war you have twin heritage had to marry into it it was now possible to make money out of money and this fuelled the industrial revolution which was something fantastic making money out of money are you talking about just capitalism or no water yes a broader around capitalism as we know it today and it was very efficient and its efficiency as you were pointing out you know it made the possibility of exchanges much more efficient but the unfortunate thing and this is what bernard has been alluded to at the opening of our conversation is that it has become brittle the system has so become so in totally brittle because it's come hyper efficient among other other aspects to its design so we're saying you know we need another the other types of money to give us a monetary toolkit. and bernard to what extent does. i mean there's

lots of currencies around the world but they're all the same type but they're all the sector they're all currencies saying we're going to governments or not with a pine forest and you say well they're all different bombings how are we know that when there is a match they can go to the same time that's what happened in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight for example while at a crisis well they always looked and they all are making their own mechanisms that are motivate the providing the same motivation at the same time so you know it's kind of like self-feeding. and that's why it's a lack of diversity of media of exchange doesn't give the flexibility that either businesses or societies or company corporations or communities would prefer. to deal with their issues and we have a one size fits all and that size fits for certain things but there are lots of

things and then happen in our society because they're not encouraged to example no environmental issues. social issues. elderly care learning these things are not very good water there are in our society the we say that the most important thing about in our society for selves are children and. the people who take care of her educating our children are paid fractional but the rest of bankers were right you know well that what's important that's a reflection of skewed values is not more than a monetary system interestingly no it's not actually it's where we're actually saying in the in our book together is that the money system actually informs the behavior and this is something we don't think about knowledge is like we are like fish swimming in water we live and we die in this stuff so it's very very difficult for a fish to actually define what water is same with this money system that we're in

we have no way of really understanding the actual impact it has because we have no other real experience of another type of money well there are and you mentioned you know chocolates or. things during during world war two. when i lived in montclair vermont we had the green mountain dollars where i could you could buy them there but they were are basically you know ten dollars for ten dollars but you knew i knew that if i used a cream dollar in a local store that that local store would have to redeem that with another local vendor that was it was going to keep their currency in the local circulation and that's socially about me talking about exactly socially desirable things so so we can't have an economy based on trial ones. but so tell me about some of the alternatives among the of turn of the if this is what you just mentioned but there are at least fifty different types of currency designs can the operational outside

of the conventional. national monies are called quote unquote because they're national they're privately issued. but the. longest system for learning currencies . we have elderly care currencies and in japan five hundred of them just what does that mean out is that ok. people system is now sort of the ninety five forty aki forty eight people literally translates from japanese as a caring relationship take it. ok and if i do something for one of my neighbors to help one point eight million people in japan that need daily care it's a fast aging society the fastest in the world and they have know a lot of people that need daily care not of the medical type i mean we're talking about shopping hell or you know. little things that make life possible at home. if i do that i get a credit and if i keep

a currency one hour is one foot i keep and i can use that currency when i need to myself i'm sick to have someone pick up my children the reliable. we can have i can send two credits to my mother who live in another part of the country and someone is thinking of her there so we create a whole support system we're actually it doesn't cost any yet as you pointed out a way i mean japan's culture historically is what's referred to as an obligation culture it's a it's a society a sort of potlatch societies isn't this a kind of a codification of that because in the old days before colonel perry busted in people would actually there would be obligation books where you kept track of what gifts people had given you and your ads are still there. which is the key if the object object to change which is the whole thing of it is so but let's that's not you you know it's one of arnie's i said ok you may be right that it has been one of

the reason that it has sprouted there first now the first city in europe that is doing this formally is some gollum in switzerland and some gal and they don't have . i don't know mentioning i think so and it's working so so so so jackie you mentioned earlier the. society you know the money as a society is a cultural. agreement and obviously what bernard was just talking about is and yet also that governments bring money into being so that they can tax how do they tax if you're operating with a non national currency. interesting question that the most ubiquitous complementary currency here in the united states is time dollars and it's like what an artist just described in japan it's backed by an hour of service and you can do a bunch of different things and time dollar or time banking has actually see three notations from the io rests three rulings from the i.r.s.

that they are actually tack to exempt officially tax exempt because of the social nature of what they're doing so so you could have excuse me so you can have. a barter economy with. what's wrong with ok there's no closer to let's say dollars have drilled into that it was time and we have to take a quick break more conversations with great minds with bernard. and jackie don right after this. well. it's technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future covered.

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welcome back to conversations of the great minds with bernard lee atar and jackie are artisan international expert in the design and implementation of currency systems jackie is the founder and c.e.o. of dano resource or jacki or authors of the book rethinking money you currencies turn scarcity into prosperity both join me now in the studio welcome back as we as we went to the last break we were talking about how these alternative is that the right word all times are become pretty much we think of. these complimentary currencies that can operate within the within the world of a national currency and without it. how they could arguably be used as a replacement for a barter system of some sort and they could be were actually that was my suggestion and you were as you were pushing back at this very point very interesting

a very simple way to explain the concept most people are very very familiar with frequent flyer miles sure this started off as a p.r. game make an order to get people to fly a certain airlines american airlines saw forty years ago what forty years later ninety six airlines have frequent flyer programs it's not just about getting a seat on the next plane to tahiti nowadays you can actually use your frequent flyer miles to do a variety of things for example a hotel nights and you can rent a car and some airlines actually have full brochures of goods and services you can actually buy with frequent flyer miles now take that concept and bring it back into the community where a community comes together community could be a geographical community it could be community online it could be a business community could get together and say what are underused resources and why. our unmet needs and i tell you both of those are going to be very very long lists and what they can do is link these unused resources and these unmet needs

with the currency. and that can be backed by hours it can be act by service you know it could be having all different types of different functionality and if you could explain the book how you unfurled the d.n.a. of conventional money and realize how we have such a competitive society and by tweaking it and we show how that can be done in the book you can have a currency within a community that has a bunch of very very different outcomes for example designing a currency to be spent in that locale to incentivize people to shop locally where we can devise currencies that are not to be saved or to be hoarded but designed purely as a means of exchange to get the economy going. and yet what stimulated my question was back in the seventy's i guess was the. reason or the ad agency in atlanta and

we were. this was the barter clubs were becoming hot there was this this business of barter clothes it was kind of a fad from the mid eighty's to the mid ninety's and our company had a new sort of factory involved itself with one and we traded out i remember we traded out advertising for furniture and we got some really nice furniture and we gave some really good advertising you know design to this company and. the i.r.s. came in and you know we got we didn't get was like an auditor something we had to present all this information to them and the guy who ran the barter club in europe going to jail for tax evasion i mean they they basically said this was a scheme to avoid paying taxes which was not our intent our intent was you know we've got a bunch of people working for us you know in the ad agency doing things and sometimes we're all just flat out screaming be. and then sometimes you know we could go by and there's not that much to do so if we could put a little extra business in here and get some furniture for that seems great but

they're arrested and take the same view of it so that is the beginning or they'll be introduced to that you have to file a special file a special form one you engage in this called commercial part and now it's perfectly legal and nobody going to prison for doing it is just a question that they caught up with that new development i see and this is so that's taken care of i mean of course can do the good things with that gun and maybe the guy who was running this particular part of his i don't know. at all just disappeared case and i'm saying there has been legislation believe it's in ninety two that the whole suppressive became formally organized reporting requirements were introduced in the works but let's turn that around tom we're looking at all these municipalities all these towns that are not being able to make their budgets they're slashing programs i mean slashing you know huge. austerity programs are coming into coming into play with a municipality for example were to accept heart payment of local taxes for example

say like property tax whatever in the local currency of that particular region you can get people to work long hours you have for example whatever it might be and then in turn they're getting this revenue in which they can perhaps get partial payment to their employees in this currency or they can buy goods and services using this i mean we've got to start thinking out of the box we're in a new age in a new era with a whole new set of problems and sensibilities wisdoms that we didn't have four hundred years ago when this national bank money was created we need new types of money the greenland hours were explicitly created to make to keep money local yes that's one model that's one model and it's one benefit one of the other models and other better. it's of alternative or complimentary currencies let me count the ways yes what will be we are for example is a very interesting idea is gregory with all. this started on this that we in

switzerland reelz are now everywhere it's a german word that means us in german and it's also the radiation from v.h.f. crisis in german which means a circle like nomic circle it was developed by seventeen business people back in one thousand thirty four in the middle of the depression it's the only system from the thirty's that actually has survived an quarter of all businesses in switzerland are now members and they are this is one of the most powerful ways to stabilize employment because employment equals the same is the same thing as a small or medium sized business in eighty ninety percent of all private jobs or in small business and the problem of small business is cash flow well this creates a cash flow process of sell you something i get a credit and we get it there but then we're neither one of us has to get money from the banking system in order to make the exchange and what it happens is this

stabilizes the economy because it is council cyclical that does the opposite of what the official business cycle does quite well if you're a normal cers guy business guy and i offer you thousands first frank sort of thousand when it's a thousand swiss francs i can go to two occasions in cancun i can buy stuff in china right with the rear i have to buy something for sixty eight thousand business interests all right so i prefer the swiss francs right now that's a human a boom period. i'm fully busy and you come up and say i offer you thousand swiss francs two thousand me to put purchase something i say come back a month later you know i'm too busy on the other hand if this is in a recession and i have fifty percent of face pay a capacity i'm going to accept it yes let's buy it that's why my desire is so what happens. when there is a recession automatically the volume of the number of participants increases which is what the company the current account the cyclical is what the normal economy and

that is the secret for the swiss economy why would it be that when you take a bunch of germans out a bunch of french and printing all the pounds and put them together and suddenly that the economy is more stable than either one of the three. i mean what's the secret is so so jackie how do we go about starting these you know somebody watching this and some municipality or some area region whatever. the water the complimentary currency is in the united states how how does you know other than reading your book of course as a story out of. it one of the great reasons why all these currencies are now bubbling up to the up to the surface because they're saying like two really major ones in one thousand nine hundred four movie now have about four thousand of the ritual ones around the world all different types of designs is there's been a confluence of cheaper computing access to the internet and social media so anybody can go to the computer and type in complementary currency or local

currencies and they will be amazed at the amount of information there is there's all these you to busy videos and how to they'll find out all the different styles and types of currencies that they are time banking is the most ubiquitous one here in the united states there's about four hundred time banking programs here in america and i think it's growing by one to two new programs every single week and people are understanding we have the power to take control of our destiny by creating our own local community currency given the dollars are brought into being by banks creating a leader there based on. our age where you are based currencies are not they're brought into being by somebody working or. and available to you if you can. is there. is there does that remove an inherent inflationary nature

from these kinds of currencies or alter any of the currency the nature of the currency that actually does that when you have a mutual created system where we create the money like that i've got a credit i'm selling you something you have a credit you have a debit by doing that. the problem of inflation arises when you have more money in circulation than goods or services or in this case the currency is created at the moment of the exchange the good of the service is available at the moment of the creation of currency you cannot have run away you know trillions of dollars so that's sort of there is the the volume of currency always reflects the the amount of goods and services in the economy actually already exchanged so the exchange has happened at that moment and the net amount of currency credits is europe you have the credit is the arbiter of how do you how do you keep these systems study how do you prevent because of a counterfeit well. those systems tend to be more transparent i can see your

account before i can make a trade with you so we actually sell policing because you know if if one of us cheats it affects me and on capacity pay for example you know if you're treating trading on e.-bay you've got little stars you know and if you get a bad rap for not honoring your obligations you know your name is mud and i'm not going to trade with you even though we're doing it dollars really there's a secondary currency that's the stormers more transparent about what we're talking about. we're talking about complementary terms you know people may be aware of e-bay where they use dollars for but you have a reputation to maintain it's almost a complimentary currency at all where saying it is but it's the basis of that claim exactly yeah. and he's as good as your word that's what keeps them solid and that's what keeps him going absolutely and the whole of the two to counterfit right you know it makes perfect sense jackie barnard thank you so much for being with us it's

been a delight i thank you thank you though to see this in other conversations of the great minds go to our website conversations with great minds dot com. coming up earlier today on the media rights land into the year old mountains region of russia injuring around a thousand people and cause you widespread structural damage to the sign from above that we shouldn't be cutting the nasa budget you can see task keeping us safe from space debris like meteorites. basis based on guns you know like here read.