It Could Happen Here - How To Print Your Own Money: The Case for Local Currencies

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Guest host Zaron Burnett investigates the curious question: Can we print our own money? The short answer is: yes, yes we can. To consider the more nuanced aspects of that question, Burnett spoke with Peter LaRochelle from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. LaRochelle administers a local currency called BerkShares, which is available in the tourist-friendly Berkshire region of western Massachusetts. The alternative currency was created 20 years ago and serves as a successful model for how to create your own local currency. LaRochelle spoke to the various challenges and benefits as well as the financial freedom a community enjoys once you start printing your own money. Sources/Links:  BerkShares Program https://berkshares.org/ Bob Dunning's Newsletter:  https://www.thewaryone.com/ https://centerforneweconomics.org/people/peter-larochelle/ https://centerforneweconomics.org https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/local-currencies-in-the-21st-century-understanding-money-building-local-economies-renewing-community/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/economics-econometrics-and-finance/alternativecurrency https://www.collaborativefinance.org/mutual-credit/local-currency/ https://sustainableandjust.org/initiatives/our-economy/alternative-economies/alternative-currencies/ https://www.theselc.org/california-community-currencies-act https://reasonstobecheerful.world/towns-invent-community-currencies/ https://www.paulglover.org/hours.html https://www.paulglover.org/hourcurrency.html https://www.paulglover.org/atwood.html https://localwiki.org/davis/Davis_Dollars https://www.opb.org/artsandlife/series/history/myrtlewood-money-north-bend-oregon-great-depression/ https://www.davisenterprise.com/users/profile/bob%20dunning/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, I'm Michael Imperioli. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Underground Zero. We're looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families. It's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. What's in the tunnels? Gold bars, Silver Ingech.

It could be worth half a billion. Starring Steve Sharipa, Ray Abruzzo, and me, Michael Imperioly. How far you're prepared to go? Depends how far you are. Listen to Underground Zero on the Eye &. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. On recent episodes of The Questlove Show, I chatted with Jojo about her music and Wallo-267 about his story, everything in between. Don't invite me to karaoke.

I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave it out, or too little, too late, or baby, it's you. Oh, no. And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with Jojo, Wolo 267, and more on the Questlove show. Listen to the Quest Love Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Did you think you were the only one?

Like no matter what you did, it was never good enough for your mother. I'm Jennifer Arnese, and this is the Black Mother Woon podcast, where we unpack and heal from the very first relationship that shaped us. We rush to accommodate other people when we have been hurt and our hurt has not been healed. Listen to the Black Mother Wound podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, and wherever you get your podcast. I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever and emissions are rising. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle. You got to get Bruce and the guy's credit.

They're Republican kids. You can be a bit about it. You just out. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Doorbell Prankster that tormented German resident apartments turns out to be a slug. Ding down. Hi, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I'm Scotty Landis.

They say no news is good news. But weird news? That's bananas. Every Tuesday on our podcast bananas, we find the strangest true stories from around the world and try to understand what the hell is going on. Man rescued by firefighters after getting stuck in a phone booth trying to order a kebab. Man, you did it. You wowed me.

We cover important discoveries, questionable decisions, and animals behaving exactly as badly as you know you want them to. China's first corgi police dogs in trouble again. Uh-oh, what did he do this time? He stole a sausage from a child. Classic dog stuff, that's it. With more than 400 episodes, there's always more weird news waiting for you on bananas. Listen to bananas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the moment, there's a great deal of a discussion about alternative currencies, specifically cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

But there is another form of alternative currency, one that is largely overlooked. I'm talking about local currencies, money that's created and distributed by a local community. Back in the 19th century, banks in America, often printed their own currency backed by gold and silver, and the U.S. Treasury was not involved. The practice started back in pre-revolutionary times when the British did not mint enough silver and copper coins for the colonies. To keep the local economies going, banks printed up paper bills to be used for goods and services and to pay back debts. After the American Revolution, in the 1800s, commercial banks in the U.S. began to issue their own local money in exchange

for gold deposits. The dollar bills printed by the banks did not travel far since they could only be redeemed at those same local banks. Trouble arose during the Civil War when the federal government began to print its own dollar bills. Those initial dollars called Greenbacks became a common target for counterfeiters. And thus, in the years just after the Civil War, it's estimated that one third of paper money circulating in the U.S. was counterfeit. The chaos created. by so much phony money in the U.S. led to the creation of the Secret Service. Before they protected the president, Secret Service agent's first order of business was protecting the American money supply. Then came the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That legislation changed

the whole monetary picture when it created centralized banking in the United States. That same act also made the U.S. Treasury, the sole legal provider of dollar bills. With this, passage, local banks stopped printing their own money. There were no more local currencies. The question we consider today is, what if we went back to that old model of local currencies? It's totally possible, and it's not illegal, as long as the money you print isn't dollar bills. Most importantly, this movement is already happening. Right now, there are communities all across the country that print their own money, and this keeps more of their money in the hands of the citizens, of that community.

So, would you like to learn how to print your own money? Not only is it legal to make your own money, it's surprisingly easy, and there are multiple ways to do it. For instance, in 1989 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the owner of a restaurant called The Deli, needed capital to finance a relocation, and so he issued Deli dollars. For customers who traded $8 of American cash, they received $10 Deli dollars, which could be used at the new location to buy 10 U.S. dollars worth of deli food. The deli dollars were essentially a gift certificate. Over in Ithaca, New York, a man named Paul Glover, offered local folks paper notes

called hours. They were worth the average hourly wage in their small town, which at the time was $10. Folks in Ithaca could trade those paper notes for goods and services in the community. In both cases, paper notes were printed up and the new money had a specific value. in terms of the U.S. dollar. You can do the same thing. Design some paper notes, print them up. Once you make the physical cash, you invite people to exchange dollar bills for your new notes. And then folks can trade your new money for goods, services, debts, all the same things that you can do with dollar bills. Now, it does work better if you can get a local bank to help out with the exchange of U.S. cash for your new money. If the bank is willing to act as the exchange point for the real U.S. treasury-backed currency for your new money, it helps your local currency to earn trust in the community and for you to handle the accounting.

That's how easy it is to start printing your own money. It feels like this should be illegal, but again, it's totally legal to make your own dollar bills, as long as what you print up isn't mistaken for U.S. dollars. That's what keeps your new money from being considered counterfeit cash. As an investigative journalist and podcast host, I've long been curious about the idea of making your own money. So doing what I do best, I tracked down an expert, a person whose job it is to administer a local currency, and asked him everything you'd want to know about printing your own money, the benefits, the challenges, the practical legalities. And I asked about the financial freedom that comes from creating a local currency. We'll get into all of that in this episode.

I'm Zarin Burnett from the podcast, Ridiculous Crime, and very special episodes, and I'm the guest host for today's episode of It Could Happen Here, How to Print Your Own Money, the case for local currencies. The idea of local currencies has always intrigued me. You see, back in 2010, in my hometown of Davis, California, a guy named Nick Berry created what were called Davis dollars. They were a local currency meant to benefit the economy of the small college town. Barry's goal was to create a way for the community to have greater control over how money

flowed in and out of the town's economy. Davis Dollars promised to keep more money in the hands of its citizens and small business owners. The idea was well intended, but the adoption of the alternative paper currency was not what you would call robust. Yeah, it was a, you know, and I won't say a big deal. I mean, it's in the local paper a couple of times. So he got good, I don't know if the TV stations in Sacramento did a piece on it. They probably did do a piece or two. If somebody got a hold of them, they probably didn't find it on their own. But yeah, the rule out was, you know, I think most people knew about it.

That's Bob Dunning. You could call him the Voice of Davis. For 54 years, he was a columnist for the Davis Enterprise newspaper. As such, he reported on what all was newsworthy in our sleepy college town. And now, keeping with the time, Times, Dunning has his own newsletter in which he continues to comment on what he's lovingly dubbed the People's Republic of Davis. As the respected chronicler of our town, naturally, Dunning has some thoughts about Davis dollars, although he can't remember ever writing about the alternative currency.

Not unless they paid me. You know, I don't think I did. I may have made passing reference. Like, well, I better pull out my Davis doll. and go to the, buy a little, by a slurpy, buy a snow cone at the little league game or something. So only in passing reference, because I like the alliteration.

When asked if he remembers ever spending one or if he ever saw an actual Davis dollar, Dunning recalled, Ah, man, making a Christmas stocking. I don't think I actually saw one. While Davis dollars may have failed to capture the imagination of the townsfolk and students of Davis, this had less to do with the promise of a local

currency and more to do with the timing. Davis dollars was launched in 2010. At that same time, the world was still mired in the economic downturn of the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009, which meant folks weren't looking for novel new ways to spend money. They were looking for ways to save the money they still had. Basically, it was a rough time to launch a new form of money. Absolutely. It's the worst time to do anything. We hear it with COVID now. Everything changed with COVID. And it did. Despite its poor timing, Dunning does agree that as an alternative currency, Davis dollars... It sounds like a good idea. Sounds like a clever idea. But so many small businesses are on such a margin. So I think that hurt it a little bit. And so carrying a Davis dollar that you could only see.

expand in downtown Davis, you couldn't go any place else with it. And even some merchants were reluctant to be part of the program. I think it was ultimately doomed. The failure of Davis dollars to win over the people is less of a critique of the potential of local currencies and instead a real-world example of the challenges a community faces when they decide to make their own money. If you plan to launch an alternative currency, timing and practicality are key. It needs to serve a real need. It can't just be theoretically attractive.

To investigate a far more successful real-world example of a local currency, we spoke with Peter La Rochelle. So I work at the Schumacher Center where a non-profit think and do tank based out of Egremont, Massachusetts. So my primary responsibility with the Schumacher Center is to administer our local currency program. To walk us through the hows and whys of printing your own money, Peter La Rochelle is here to discuss the vast potential

and the practical realities of making your own money. Who better to explain the value of printing your own money than someone whose job it is to do just that? The local currency he administers is called... Berkshares, which is an on-the-ground example of a local currency right here in the Berkshire region that the Schumacher Center helped found. For the tourist-driven economy of the Berkshire's region of western Massachusetts,

a local currency was a savvy way to keep more of their economic power in the area rather than seeing money flow in and then quickly flow right back out. The Berkshire's program was started back in 2006, and 20 years later, it's still going strong. The credit for that belongs to the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, which was founded by E.F. Schumacher back in 1980, The think and do tank, as Peter La Rochelle called it, advocates for a new form of economics.

It's right there in the name. Its founder, E.F. Schumacher, believed in something he called, quote, an economy of permanence. According to the Schumacher Center's website, quote, in today's global economy, national currencies, have had the effect of centralizing ownership of wealth and of widening the gap between rich and poor, all the while undermining local communities,

devastating indigenous peoples and polluting the environment. Standing in opposition to this global trend is the Schumacher Center. And a key tool to bring more economic power and independence to communities is a local currency. As their website argues, quote, decentralized regional currencies are an important counterforce working to redistribute wealth more broadly while supporting unique regional identities, cultures, and communities. Back to Peter La Rochelle. think people want to feel like they have a say in the systems that dictate their lives. All of the

Schumacher Center's projects that they've helped found and they support are democratic, people-based projects that are run by nonprofits that are members of the community that run these projects, whether it's local currencies or community land trusts or any other projects. The idea really is that people should be able to have a say in the communities they live in. I know this may sound like some weird libertarian crypto nonsense, but as we'll explain, it is a totally different thing. And to that point, Peter La Rochelle would like to assure you that the Schumacher Center is very much a capitalist idea. I think the way Berkshires is structured should reflect capitalism at its best.

We absolutely believe in for-profit enterprise, private ownership of businesses, and we believe that when it's done right, that's what makes a community thrive. This record is on. Miley is having a moment, new name, exclusive shows. So IHart Radio is sending you to experience it all. Life at the Hollywood pole, lights, hotel, tickets, and a thousand dollars cash. Listen to IHart new music for 10 minutes a day on the IHart Radio app and click enter. Every day you listen is another chance to win.

Stream Miley's new album, Bass Persuades, today. There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pruh is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptide, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better, getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing,

cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far. Fake a back injury. Get the spray tan. Up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns. Kill them.

Kill them for the gun. Listen, it's already over. I'm all about lying if it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing. You look the bear in the eye and you say this isn't you. Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast.

Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pruh on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me in former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, lots to say with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. We also bring in friends, they're mostly Matt's friends, who are current or former NFL players, some of the biggest names in music and entertainment, and then we have some really great conversations

that can pretty much go anywhere. The great Pac-Man Jones. After the game, the whole national task force for police officers was at the stadium. Like, hey, buddy, yeah, you, Adam. Come up. And one of my favorite segments we do is called situational awareness, where Bobby and I give each other real-life situations and figure out what we'd actually do.

You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You just go back out to practice the next day, and wait for him to mess up. Listen to lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatines to Montegrozzo.

And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk. thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all.

You gotta give Bruce and the guy's credit. They're Republicans. They don't get a bit of money. It's now. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits

of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case has a story. Every victim has a voice, but will it be heard? I'm Nancy Grace on crime stories. We go beyond headlines to examine evidence, challenge the story we're fed, and pursue justice for victims and their families. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. Hope you join us. I'll see you there, friend.

What the Berkshares program seeks to disrupt is the concentration of wealth. The trouble with centralized wealth is that it's typically controlled by people with no connection to a local community. That's why the Berkshares program acts as a bulwark against the conglomeration of businesses that only speak to the values of shareholders who want to see more and more and more profits over time. A local currency is a tool created to minimize the outsized power of billionaires, private equity, and stockholder-focused banking interests. Because, quite simply put, their monetary interests are often what...

Sucks the life out of communities? In stark contrast to that dynamic, a local currency becomes a means for a community to tend to their own economic garden, so to speak. And that's why as an alternative currency, it's meant to work in conjunction with the U.S. Treasury, not as a means to replace it. Or, as Peter La Rochelle puts it, businesses are taking Berkshares the same way they would regular U.S. dollars and they do it to make a profit. So I don't think there's anything so dissimilar about Berkshares compared to regular capitalist systems other than that we're prioritizing the little guys and individual communities

and really a thriving capitalist business scene on your main streets and business corridors that are supported by a ton of different people and small businesses. fill in all the niche needs in their communities. The Schumacher Center defines a local currency as an umbrella term for any sort of currency that is place-based and intended to build a more sustainable or resilient local economy. So those are two key aspects to it. And I can think of examples that make this distinction clear. For example, a currency might be place-based, but if it's not intended to build a sustainable

local economy. We don't call it a local currency. Ultimately, this is what separates a local currency from, say, a cryptocurrency, which technically is another form of alternative currency. As Peter La Rochelle explains, this distinction was made clear during the crypto craze of the early 2020s. One such cryptocurrency was called Miami coin. It was placed in that when people mined the Miami coin, some percentage of the value that was created went to a wallet owned by the city of Miami. So in a way, it produced wealth for the city of Miami.

It's place-based. It's in the name Miami coin. But it's certainly not about creating a sustainable or resilient local economy. It was speculative. It didn't really even represent a real currency in that it couldn't be used to purchase goods or services within Miami or within any other region. It was purely speculative. Another form of alternative currency, one that is quite different from crypto, is the far older concept of Scrip, or company dollars.

For example, in coal country, there used to be company towns. And for their local money, they had something called Scrip. It was a form of currency that coal workers and their families could use to buy things from the company store. Which, as Peter La Rochelle points out, that's... A place-based currency, but it is not about building a sustainable community or community economy. We would never refer to that. kind of thing as a local currency, and certainly we would never try to model a system after that. Conversely, what the Berkshares program is designed to do is to give their community more control

of their local economics. You see, a Berkshire is seen as a form of power, handing the power of a dollar back to the people rather than handing that power over to the banks. Well, what comes to mind when I think of money having power is the ability for money to create more money where take your money and you store it in some investment account off in the middle of nowhere and once you generate enough money you can just keep generating more and more and more. Berkshairs does not work like that. Berkshairs is power. It's power on an individual level to shape your community. So money, the power and money is not about who you can influence or how much wealth you can generate for your own personal gain. The power behind Berkshers is

more about where you're spending your money and what kind of money you're spending, how does that impact the people around you? How does that impact your community? And that's, in a way, something that feels lost in traditional currency. People don't think twice about where it goes, where it came from, or who it's supporting. Whereas with Burke shares, their local currency makes that same power of money manifest and highly visible for the local community. They know where their money is going and what what good it's doing for their community. Berkshares are place-based,

and they bring it back to those values of supporting a local economy and local resources for local needs. So I think it flips power on its head by making people think not what money can do for yourself and what kind of wealth you can generate for yourself and where you can store your money

to be able to influence the right people, but rather it's about empowering you and your fellow community members to shape the kind of community you want to see. Since money is a form of power, a local currency is a way to take some of your power back. Well, local currencies may come off like some brand new idea like crypto, and while its advocates may pitch it as the sort of economic idea

that Bernie Bros could get behind and that aging hippies could equally love, a local currency is primarily a means for community members of all ages and walks of life to more meaningfully engage in the economic life, in their cities, towns, and hamlets. And as the local currencies of the 18th and 19th centuries prove, this idea is not new. Also, it's not unique to the United States. During the Great Depression over in Austria, a small town called Vergel was having a tough time. Unemployment was rampant,

debts were skyrocketing, and infrastructure was falling apart. The town desperately needed money to combat all three issues, so they introduced a local currency called Labor. certificates. That Hail Mary Economic Act saved the town. Unemployment fell by 25% at the same time that it was rising by 19% across the rest of Austria. The secret to their success was that this new form of money stayed in their town as it circulated. Thus, their introduction of this local currency blunted the devastating impacts of their Great Depression. This unexpected success became known as the Miracle of Vergel. Unfortunately, when the town's mayor shared stories of their success at a meeting of 170 other mayors, the Central Bank of Austria caught wind of it and outlawed their local currency.

Guess they saw this local currency as too much of a threat for their business model of debt and centralized banking. More recently, in 1972, a man named Ralph Borsati created a local alternative currency experiment in Exeter, New Hampshire, called the Constance. It was called the constant because it was a citizen-issued currency backed by an index of world commodities to give the local currency real purchasing power and to keep that purchasing power constant as the years went on. Unfortunately, due to the ill health of Ralph Borsati, his experiment with local currencies had to be discontinued. However, the spirit of this idea remained vital, particularly in the New England area where the Berkshares program would come to be decades later. Meanwhile, overseas, particularly in Europe, the idea of a local currency remained quite popular. In 2015, it was estimated that there were nearly 400 local currencies circulating in Spain.

And in the UK, there's a local currency called the Brixton Pound. Here on the west coast of the United States, where I live, we've seen a number of local currencies over the years. There's the aforementioned Davis dollars from my hometown. and down in the area of California near Yosemite National Park, there's a local currency called the North Forkshire, which is similar to the Berkshire notes. Up in Oregon, back during the Great Depression, the town of North Bend saved their local economy

by minting wood-based coins called Myrtlewood Money. Around that same time, in the town of Hepner, Oregon, locals created their own local currency printed on sheepskin. But once the Great Depression passed, those local currencies were no longer necessary. At the present moment, our economy may not be as bad as the Great Depression, but the power of a local currency to protect a local community remains the same. As Peter La Rochelle points out,

The values that are guiding systems like Berkshires honestly often feel amplified in the modern age, where people are starting to recognize the disconnect that they feel through modern systems, whether that's digitally or a more globalized economy, when their communities don't have identity. I mean, there's almost a romanticization of the past right now. I'm seeing a lot in the urbanist field. It's very trendy right now.

But it's because people are looking back at a time where they felt like communities had real identity and individuality and strength of their own. And people want to see a future like that. And I don't think there are many tools quite as unique as a local currency to insubstern. inspire people and create that hope and make people feel like the direction of their community is in their hands. In order for a local community to grab hold of the wheel and steer their community through the rough economic seas ahead, La Rochelle believes that a local currency is one of the greatest tools available.

That's the beauty of a local currency is that we're not talking about big systems change on the individual level. We're just talking about where is your money going? create a system small nonprofit can oversee it that takes some work but on the individual level you're creating change in your community just with where you spend your dollar and what kind of dollar you're using which is something that I think a lot of people can latch on to you know like I said I think I'm seeing a lot of movement within this country for people to to do things more on a community level on a face-to-face basis and on a human scale really and that's where local currencies shine It's human scale. It's about a region. It's not about growth for the sake of growth.

As a thriving example of a local currency, the Berkshares program has enjoyed 20 years of success. The simple reason for its success is that it works well as a form of money. Let's check the numbers. There are currently 111,000 Burke shares in circulation. There are more than 300 local businesses that accept Berkshares as a form of payment. Here's Peter La Rochelle to explain how it all works on the local level. So, Berkshires are exchanged on par with U.S. dollars. So it's $1 for one Berkshire. There's no secret reason to use Berkshares beyond supporting your local economy.

So let's say you want to spend or Berkshire. How exactly does that work? The way Berkshers work is anyone in the community can walk into one of our exchange points, which happened to be community banks. people walk into the bank, go up to the teller, and just do a transaction like they would any other time they walk into a bank. They ask for the teller to exchange U.S. dollars for Bers. They do it pretty seamlessly. And once they have Bers, they can spend them at any business that's willing to take them.

When you use a Bershare to buy something or to pay for a service, it's designed to be a painless exchange. There's no weird or wonky extra math to do since a Berkshire has the same value as U.S. dollar. So an item that costs $10 would cost $10 Berkshires. Consumers can spend with that business in Berkshairs, get their change in Berkshairs or U.S. dollars. Note that we do not have coins because it's against the law, but you are allowed to have paper notes. So if people need change in coins,

they just get regular U.S. coinage. And then when the business receives that Berkshires, they have two options. They can bring it back to the bank or they can go and spend it elsewhere in the community at other businesses that are willing to accept Berkshers. Now, what happens when that business wants to exchange a Berkshare and convert it back into U.S. dollars? Is that equally painless?

So business could take it back to the bank, and then they would have freedom with their U.S. dollars to spend that money wherever they want. So that's probably the easiest decision. There is a one-time transaction fee to convert a Berkshare back into U.S. dollars, but that cost is exceedingly low. We do have a 1.5% reverse exchange fee. So when you're obtaining Berkshires, there's no fee. But if you're trading Berkshers back for cash, there is that 1.5% exchange fee. So that's lower than what businesses are used to, whether that's with credit cards or with mobile payment platforms like Venmo when they cash out. So it's not this massive barrier to participating in Berkshares, but it's a number that's high enough to make them think,

maybe I would just be better spending them in the community rather than bringing it to. to the bank. In other words, that 1.5% fee to convert a Berkshare back into a dollar is meant to encourage a community member or a business to continue circulating the Berkshare in the local economy for other goods or services. And the reason that we support that is because we know when they're not bringing the Berkshares back to the bank, that money has to stay in the community, and it stays within that tight network of local businesses that decide to take Berkshares. And it also encourages new businesses to sign on because maybe when business gets some good that they're selling, they do get locally and they say, I have all these Berkshares, would you be willing to

accept them? And then you get more people on board that way. So that's as simple as it gets. We call that recirculation of Berkshers the local multiplier effect. This local multiplier effect is another major reason for the success of Berkshares. A local currency holds the power to generate two to four times more local economic impact than, say, traditional money that gets spent at some big box store. Study after study will show that spending your money at independent, small, locally based businesses will generate considerably higher proportion of downstream economic effects within that local economy.

By keeping their dollars in their local economy, thanks to their local economy, thanks to their local currency, the people of the Berkshers region strengthen their local businesses and protect the area from economic troubles that are wrecking shop in the larger economy. That's really the selling point for Berkshires. So on your end, you bought a $5 item for $5 or five Berkshires, but your purchase has a little bit more power within your community. So you feel more empowered as a consumer to create local economic development. This is also the key distinction for a Berkshire versus, say, Bitcoin or other cryptocoins?

A local currency is place-based and it's meant to build a sustainable local economy. So a cryptocurrency could be either one of those things. But in general, cryptocurrencies are speculative. Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Miami coin, which we mentioned earlier, those are speculative. The purpose of cryptocurrencies is not to invest in your community, even in large geographic areas. It's about personal financial gain. and often they're not even treated as currencies. They're not used to exchange goods.

They're used to hold and then sell when more people buy them and the price goes up. Which raises an interesting question. Could a local currency, like Berkshares, issue its own cryptocurrency, one that is specifically designed for the same local community usage? We did have a digital currency in a beta form in mid to late 2022. There were a lot of benefits to the app. We were bringing in a lot of new businesses that didn't really want to deal with the paper currency, but we're happy to deal with a more frictionless platform.

We saw a lot of people get excited over the fact that they could use Berkshires without always having to walk into a bank. It was as easy as taking out their phone and scanning a QR code. But there were many things that needed to be fixed within the app and sort of systemic things that made it not sustainable at that time, including the cost of maintaining the app. So we do want to restart a mobile payment platform with Berkshares and other digital ways to use them, but we only want to do it if we're doing it exactly right. We don't want to roll out a product that is not meeting the needs in the community. This leads to another key question.

These days, who is still using paper money for their purchases? Well, we already know the answer to that, older generations. So does that limit the impact of Berkshares? if younger people are less likely to use cash as a form of money. Speaking to generational gaps, in general, we find that Berkshires are used more often in older populations, people who are more familiar with the nature of walking into a bank or even just using physical currency

and keeping that on their person at all times. That is admittedly getting a bit antiquated, especially ever since early 2020s where it seems like every sort of digital platform, whether it's payment or even doing business digitally by purchasing things online. We find that younger people are using those platforms more often. Many of them have never even walked into a bank in their whole lives. So that's where we start to see a generational gap, where there's a lot of friction for a young person to use Berkshairs

because doing those kinds of things are not part of their daily life. They're not used to it. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. The podcasts everyone's talking about. All in one place. And it's free. I heart radio.

Whatever you want to hear. Listen anytime, anywhere. Music, radio, podcasts. Unlimited audio. It's on the free IHurt Radio app. Let's go! One app. No subscription.

Always free. Grab the free app. I heart radio. Everywhere you go. Always free. Download the free IHard Radio app today. There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better your yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pruh is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting

thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far. Fake a back injury. Get the spray tan, up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns. Kill them. Kill them for the gun.

Listen, it's already over. I'm all about lying if it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say this isn't you. Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pruh on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Bobby Bones.

Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, lots to say with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. We also bring in friends, they're mostly Matt's friends, who are current or former NFL players, some of the biggest names in music and entertainment, and then we have some really great conversations that can pretty much go anywhere. The great Pac-Man Jones.

After the game, the whole national task force for police officers was at the stadium. Like, hey, buddy, yeah, you, Adam. Come up. One of my favorite segments we do is called situational awareness, where Bobby and I give each other real-life situations and figure out what we'd actually do. You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session

in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You just go back out to practice the next day, and wait for him to mess up. Listen to lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil.

So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatines to Madagroso. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk. thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions

have anything to do with climate at all. You gotta give Bruce and the guy's credit. They're Republican. They don't give a shit about him in this now. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case has a story. Every victim has a voice, but will it be heard? I'm Nancy Grace on crime stories. We go beyond headlines to examine evidence, challenge the story we're fed, and pursue justice for victims and their families. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. Hope you join us. I'll see there, friend. While young folks aren't as likely to step into a bank to exchange dollars for burkshares, they do tend to notice them when someone else spends them in a local business. The reason is immediate. It's the artwork that colors a Berkshare note.

On each denomination of Berkshares, there's a different local hero who's celebrated, both for their value to the community and to our American culture writ large. For instance, on the $50-dollar burkshare note, you find a portrait of... Norman Rockwell, a legendary artist whose artwork itself, I think, fits a lot of the themes of Berkshairs. It's inclusive of everyone. There's no sector of American life that hasn't been touched by Norman Rockwell's artwork in some form or no kind of person who hasn't been represented in some form. So Norman Rockwell is natural for including on the Berkshires in that sense, but also Norman Rockwell has a long history in the Berkshires, hundreds and hundreds of his

paintings were made at his studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which is in Berkshire County, just north of Great Barrington. The Norman Rockwell Museum is in Stockbridge, and his legacy plays a really foundational role in Berkshire history, and people often drive down through Stockbridge or even other Berkshire towns and say, wow, this town looks like it's straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And at least in the town of Stockbridge, that's because it is directly out of a Norman Rockwell painting. So we honor that history by featuring him on the $50 Berkshire and, of course, also honor the themes of his artwork as well, which often centered on small town life and the beauty of personal relationships at the local level. For the $20 Berkshire note, the Schumacher's

Center opted to celebrate another famous son of New England, who's also another world-famous American. We feature Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick. Herman Melville did not grow up in Berkshire County, but he eventually moved here because he found inspiration in the natural landscape of the Berkshires. He settled down at Arrowhead, or what is now Arrowhead in Pittsfield, which at this point is a museum. But at Arrowhead, that was his workplace. And in fact, one of my favorite hiking spots in Berkshire County at Monument Mountain,

and in Great Barrington, Herman Melville frequented Mineman Mountain to gain inspiration for his ratings. And I think that's really cool. Herman Melville found that same inspiration in the Berkshire landscape that so many people who come here every day feel. So we honor his history and the Berkshires on the $20 Berkshire.

As for the $10 Berkshire note, it celebrates a hero of the local agriculture movement. If you've ever taken part in community-supported agriculture, if you've ever signed up to receive a CSA box of fresh produce, you have Robin Van N. Robin Van N. Founded the first community-supported agriculture project in North America. Her work created a movement out of it.

You know, now we find hundreds and hundreds of farms across the country using a CSA model to raise money before the growing season and lock in capital. And instead of having to pay it back with loans with ridiculous, interest rates, they just pay back that money with really delicious food that they grow. We, of course, honor that history because it's so related to our mission of community-supported industry more broadly, community-supported agriculture would fall into that umbrella. So she's on the $10 Berkshire.

Notably, her CSA farm was located in Berkshire County. It was in the town of Egremont. It still exists. Robin Van and passed away unexpectedly at a pretty young age. But the farm still has a thriving CSA program. It's on community land trust land. So there's a lot of connections with her legacy in the Schumacher Center. Next up, we have the $5.

Berkshire note, which features a local artist portrait of. W.E.B. Du Bois, which is actually, I think, a really inspiring story out of the Berkshire's organization. W.E.B. Du Bois has really become the face of the town of Great Barrington and has been recognized as a son of the town. You'll find throughout Great Bankton, there are all sorts of murals and landmarks and historical sites that recount his history and are dedicated to him.

You know, murals that include his face. The middle school actually has been renamed to W.E.V. Du Bois Regional Middle School. And it feels like every month there's some new project in town to further honor and educate people on his history. recently a statue of W.E.V. Du Bois was added outside the Great Barrington Library, Mason Library. So in general, the town has taken on a much more active role in honoring his history, but Berkshires has been doing that for a long time. So we're glad to have played a role. We hope that we

played a role in changing that perception and getting the town to more actively celebrate his history. And lastly, for the $1.Berkshire note, rather than celebrate an individual, the Schumacher Center opted to celebrate a whole community. It's the only Berkshire that doesn't feature a specific individual, but it does feature a Stockbridge Mohican. The Mohicans were not actually native to the Berkshire region, but they were pushed over here during colonial times. And I think it's an interesting story because nowadays, they actually look back to the Berkshires as their homeland in a way, even though it wasn't necessarily where they all came from originally, but the Mohicans were one of the only Native American

tribes that fought alongside the revolutionaries and the revolutionary war. But of course, they were pushed out of the Berkshire region eventually. But there is still an active presence with some local groups to maintain their history in the Berkshires. And we hope that Berkshires is one small part in doing that to remind people of the people that were here before us. Due to the 20-year success story of the Berkshires program, other communities across the country and around the world often approach the Schumacher Center for help to design, create, and distribute their own local currency. We are kind of that go-to institution for people that want to learn how to start their own currencies or other similar systems. And the number one

challenge that I bring up to them, challenge, but also what we see is the most important thing for obtaining success with a local currency in the United States would be working with community banks. Berkshares is very unique in that we do not exchange currency ourselves. You don't walk into a Berkshares office and trade in dollars for Berkshares. You walk into a community bank. In general, when you're working with small community bank, they have all the infrastructure, needed to account for a currency. This is equally key for the success of a local currency, since it is money, and it's important that people have full faith and trust in their money.

To build trust in that system, you can't tell people, I'm keeping track of how much money is where, and I'll be able to make sure you can always trade your money back in. That's not going to build trust. But when you're doing it through an institution like a bank, that has the resources to just manage Bershires like they do any other account. so it's not a crazy load on their part. That's how a system like Berkshires can thrive for so many years. If this sounds good to your ears,

and if you'd like to see something like this in your local community, Peter La Rochelle has a few recommendations for how to make it happen. So if you're looking to start a local currency in the United States, the challenge that you're going to have to face, but also probably gives you the best opportunity for long-term success, is finding banking institutions that you can work with and work out of that share your mission. You're not going to be able to work out of the Bank of America.

This should surprise no one. Much like the Austrian local currency that saved a town but was outlawed when the Central Bank heard about its success, in today's banking world, a major transnational bank like Bank of America has similar reasons to not want to see the success of a local currency. It offers direct competition for their bottom line, which is what matters most to big banks. back to Peter La Rochelle. I say that all the time.

If those are the only banks in your community, you might have to explore other options because they don't want to get involved with initiatives like this. You have to work with the kinds of banks that share your mission, and you can work through a credit union, perhaps, or in the Northeast,

we have mutual banks that operate similarly to a credit union, but still, they're the small community-focused banks that actually have ownership within the community. So they're more likely to sign on on an initiative like this, And since they share your mission of local economic development, that's also an easy sell. Norman Rockwell, who was mentioned earlier, celebrated small-town life and a local-based idea of Americana.

And as such, his work serves as a reminder of the importance of embracing a local identity as a point not just of pride of place, but as a source of community power in order to survive those storms that blow in from far away places and threaten a community. Norman Rockwell serves as a beautiful reminder of the past and also what lessons we can pull from our history. The people that we feature on the Berkshires like Norman Rockwell or W.E.B. Du Bois. These are people who everyone in a community can rally behind and can share something with. We're speaking to shared values that I think Americans across the political spectrum, Americans across generations that they share. People want to see a vibrant, thriving local economy within their community. And that's what we are ultimately looking for. And what's more American than teaming up with neighbors from any background, from all identities to identify shared values and do work together to achieve that community

and vision that you want to see? That's the American dream in a nutshell. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. podcast from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Michael and Perioli. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Underground Zero. We're looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families. It's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks.

What's in the tunnels? Gold bars, Silver Ingets. It could be worth half a bit. Billion. Starring Steve Sharipa, Ray Abruzzo, and me, Michael Imperioly. How far you're prepared to go? Depends how far you are. Listen to Underground Zero on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On recent episodes of The Questlove Show, I chatted with Jojo about her music and Wallow 267 about his story, everything in between. Don't invite me to karaoke.

I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave it out, or too little too late, or baby it's you. Oh, no. and I'm going to be like, okay, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with JoJo, Wilo, 26, 7, and more on The Questlove Show. Listen to the Questlove show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Peace. Did you think you were the only one? Like, no matter what you did, it was never good enough for your mother. I'm Jennifer Arnese, and this is the Black Mother Woon podcast, where we unpack and heal from the very first relationship that shaped us. We brush.

to accommodate other people when we have been hurt and our hurt has not been healed. Listen to the Black Mother Wound podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, and wherever you get your podcast. I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change.

Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever and emissions are rising. On this season of Drilled Carbon Cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle. You gotta give Bruce of the guys credit. They're Republican. They don't give a shit of money.

It's now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Doorbell Prankster that tormented German resident apartments turns out to be a slug. Ding dog. Hi, I'm Kurt Brown Oler. And I'm Scotty Landis. They say no news is good news. But weird news?

That's bananas. Every Tuesday on our podcast bananas, we find. the strangest true stories from around the world and try to understand what the hell is going on. Man rescued by firefighters after getting stuck in a phone booth trying to order a kebab. Man, you did it. You wowed me. We cover important discoveries, questionable decisions,

and animals behaving exactly as badly as you know you want them to. China's first corgi police dogs in trouble again. Uh-oh, what did he do this time? He stole a sausage from a child. Classic dog stuff. That's it. With more than 400 episodes, there's always more weird news waiting for you on bananas. Listen to bananas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.