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Can you live without a bank account? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, the s Y s K treet Yes, San Francisco, Oakland,
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1:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
1:25
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
1:34
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and it's just us.
1:39
Speaker 1: We've been abandoned this week now. No one was in
1:43
Speaker 1: there for a second earlier, but it's like home alone.
1:48
Speaker 1: Ah boy, I love that movie. When it came out.
1:52
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. I thought the sequence, the big break
1:56
Speaker 1: in sequence where he had everything rigged that fifteen or
1:59
Speaker 1: twenty minute I thought that was one of the funniest
2:01
Speaker 1: things I've ever seen. It was a pretty good movie.
2:03
Speaker 1: I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Was that a
2:06
Speaker 1: John Hughes movie? Yeah? Okay, makes sense that Chicago Suburbs
2:12
Speaker 1: setting he loved, Yes he did. R I P Chicago
2:18
Speaker 1: Suburbs alright, P John Hughes. Oh I see that makes
2:22
Speaker 1: way more sense. Yeah. It was just a couple of
2:25
Speaker 1: years ago, right, not too long ago, for sure, Within
2:29
Speaker 1: the last five I would say, Man, all those great movies,
2:33
Speaker 1: cry baby um in Flamingos, Nope, Apocalypse now, yeah, he's good.
2:41
Speaker 1: Oh wow. He passed away in two thousand nine, so yeah,
2:43
Speaker 1: seven years ago. What No? Wow? Yeah, I thought it
2:48
Speaker 1: was way more recent than that. Time flies in a
2:50
Speaker 1: world without John Hughes, you know where time doesn't fly
2:53
Speaker 1: chuck at the beginning of our episodes kind of drag.
3:01
Speaker 1: That's funny. So today we're talking about the possibility, the
3:05
Speaker 1: potential of living in this modern American life, this modern
3:11
Speaker 1: world in general, without a bank account. Yeah, this ended
3:15
Speaker 1: up being a little more interesting than I thought it
3:17
Speaker 1: was gonna be. Oh yeah, I'm glad that was the case.
3:21
Speaker 1: It was less interesting than you thought it was gonna be. No, no,
3:24
Speaker 1: but I mean we've had some of those before, Like
3:27
Speaker 1: jack Hammers comes to mind. That was better, it was
3:30
Speaker 1: going It was the opposite. I was like, wait, wait, wait,
3:34
Speaker 1: there has to be more on jack Hammers than this. Nope,
3:38
Speaker 1: that was your pick. Yeah, it was no forever bear
3:41
Speaker 1: that cross. So you would think that banks in general
3:47
Speaker 1: is ubiquitous and huge and powerful and um out of
3:53
Speaker 1: control as they are had been around for millions of years, right,
3:59
Speaker 1: Terry maybe not millions, tens of thousands of years. Uh.
4:05
Speaker 1: It turns out actually the bank, the concept of the
4:08
Speaker 1: bank as we see it today, is actually only about
4:11
Speaker 1: five hundred or so years old. Yes, I would have
4:15
Speaker 1: guessed way older than that. Yeah, and I'm glad this
4:17
Speaker 1: article did a little history there, because I didn't know
4:20
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. Um, the first actual bank, kind
4:24
Speaker 1: of modern bank that we think of as a bank,
4:28
Speaker 1: was the Bank of St. George or the Banco the
4:31
Speaker 1: San Giogio in Genoa, Italy or is it Genoa. I've
4:39
Speaker 1: always seen Genoa, Genoa, Genoa, Genoa. So that was um.
4:44
Speaker 1: And and they point out in this article that wasn't
4:46
Speaker 1: the invention of banking, because banking is different than a bank. Yeah,
4:53
Speaker 1: banking actually did start several thousand years ago, as far
4:58
Speaker 1: as far back as Mesopotamia and Egypt. And this article
5:02
Speaker 1: says that the that grain started to be kept in
5:05
Speaker 1: temples in a grain bank, I saw gold. But the
5:10
Speaker 1: upshot of it was is that these temples that were
5:13
Speaker 1: built were basically sacrosanc the armies would protect them with
5:17
Speaker 1: their lives. So it would just make sense that if
5:20
Speaker 1: you wanted to store something extremely precious and valuable UM
5:24
Speaker 1: like gold, We'll just put in a temple, so the
5:27
Speaker 1: earliest reserve banks I guess you could put it, or
5:31
Speaker 1: temples in Egypt and Mesopotamia. And then one at some
5:35
Speaker 1: point some of the local people or local rulers came
5:39
Speaker 1: along and said, hey, I really need some money. You
5:42
Speaker 1: guys have tons of gold just sitting in there. Can
5:44
Speaker 1: I borrow some of it? And then I'll give you
5:46
Speaker 1: that amount back plus a little more for letting me
5:49
Speaker 1: borrow it? And they said, why should we call this?
5:54
Speaker 1: And they call it banking. Do you know where that
5:57
Speaker 1: work came from? No? I don't either, because they probably
6:01
Speaker 1: didn't call it banking. They probably called it like sun
6:03
Speaker 1: crow or something like that. So, uh, let's go back
6:09
Speaker 1: to UM in Italy. And this is when Italy had
6:14
Speaker 1: a city states. Oh wait, I had more, I had more. Yeah,
6:19
Speaker 1: it's it actually is kind of interesting. All right, Well,
6:21
Speaker 1: let me down the machine. Okay, yeah, just keep it idling,
6:25
Speaker 1: keep on um. They so you had the initial banking practices,
6:31
Speaker 1: and they kept developing and developing, and then Greece and
6:34
Speaker 1: Rome really kind of took them and and went to
6:37
Speaker 1: town with them, and things like UM book transactions where
6:41
Speaker 1: you could go into a bank in one city in
6:44
Speaker 1: deposit some money, and the banquet handle credit arranging credit
6:50
Speaker 1: for you in another city, so you didn't have to
6:51
Speaker 1: travel from one city to another, which is very dangerous
6:54
Speaker 1: with a bunch of money on you. It's a book
6:56
Speaker 1: transaction that came from like the Greeks and the Romans,
6:59
Speaker 1: and these were going to smoothly. And then Rome fell
7:02
Speaker 1: and it was replaced by the Holy Roman Empire, which
7:06
Speaker 1: was a Christian empire, and Christianity had this very strict
7:10
Speaker 1: rule against usury, and usury today means extremely high interest rates,
7:16
Speaker 1: whereas at at the origin of the word it meant
7:20
Speaker 1: just charging interests at all. So there was no money
7:24
Speaker 1: whatsoever in banking UM, so there weren't any bankers. Well,
7:28
Speaker 1: the Jewish faith didn't have any rules against usury. So
7:33
Speaker 1: as the Holy Roman Empire was in in UH in
7:36
Speaker 1: power for these several hundred years, they fulfilled the banking
7:40
Speaker 1: UH industry UH until finally about the I think thirteenth
7:45
Speaker 1: and fourteenth century when UM, like the Italians started to
7:49
Speaker 1: get into it and they kind of created that that
7:53
Speaker 1: UM modern banking system that we see today. Can I
7:57
Speaker 1: get back in, Yeah? Can I? Can we go to
8:04
Speaker 1: fourteen o eight, Yes, specifically March fourteen o eight. This
8:09
Speaker 1: is UM, like I teased before in Italy, this is
8:12
Speaker 1: the at the time of the city state UM, when
8:17
Speaker 1: you would go to war with one another within your
8:19
Speaker 1: own country UM. Specifically in this case, UH, Genoa was
8:26
Speaker 1: getting UH trod upon by Venice. Long long war with
8:32
Speaker 1: Venice big rivals. And basically as what happens many times
8:36
Speaker 1: in war is it's sort of bled that city state
8:40
Speaker 1: of Genoa dry and it was in bad shape. So
8:44
Speaker 1: these folks got together. I did look it up. I
8:47
Speaker 1: can't remember who it was, though, the initial investors UM
8:50
Speaker 1: that started the Bank of St. George, and he said, hey,
8:54
Speaker 1: let's create this thing and like literally in a building, UH,
8:57
Speaker 1: it will be a bank and we can finance reap
9:00
Speaker 1: aim it of all these war debts UH and earn
9:03
Speaker 1: a little seven percent on top interest on top of
9:07
Speaker 1: it all. And in fact we got a better idea.
9:10
Speaker 1: Why don't we even have the power to go and
9:12
Speaker 1: collect uh city taxes and customs and stuff to make
9:16
Speaker 1: sure we get paid back. And it worked, Yeah, it did.
9:20
Speaker 1: They brought Genera out of bankruptcy and apparently the bank
9:24
Speaker 1: went on until the nineteenth century, like four hundred years George, Yeah,
9:30
Speaker 1: it is cool. Um. One of the reasons probably why
9:33
Speaker 1: it was successful is that the people who were overseeing
9:36
Speaker 1: it were directly invested into the bank, like substantially, Like
9:40
Speaker 1: if you were one of the treasurers, you had to
9:42
Speaker 1: um invest at least sixteen thousand lira, which is several
9:47
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in today's money, um directly into the bank, right, So,
9:52
Speaker 1: so you wanted to see that bank succeed like crazy
9:56
Speaker 1: because you were directly invested in it, and if the
9:58
Speaker 1: bank went under, you stood to lose quite a bit.
10:01
Speaker 1: That's that's not the case with banks today. I mean
10:04
Speaker 1: companies and I'm sure including banks too like their employees
10:08
Speaker 1: to be invested in the company. But certainly there it's
10:12
Speaker 1: not a requirement that you have several hundred thousand dollars
10:14
Speaker 1: worth of your company's stock to be a director of
10:17
Speaker 1: the bank. And then the bank itself can very easily
10:22
Speaker 1: be overextended, um, just because of what are called reserve requirements. Right,
10:27
Speaker 1: we should do like a whole episode on banking, by
10:29
Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, boy, especially that that fall out recently
10:33
Speaker 1: with Wells Fargo. Oh about the fake um, the fake accounts, dude,
10:40
Speaker 1: have you seen the ad that they have about it.
10:44
Speaker 1: They have this ad and it's almost like they shaved
10:48
Speaker 1: off the first five seconds where they admit that their
10:52
Speaker 1: people created all these fraudulent accounts, right, and then the
10:55
Speaker 1: ad comes in at everyone who has affected will be
10:58
Speaker 1: fully refunded. We want to gain your trust back. But
11:02
Speaker 1: they never say specifically what they're talking about, like they
11:05
Speaker 1: never cop to it. Like it's bizarre. You know that thing,
11:09
Speaker 1: it makes it stand out like a sore thumb, you know. Yeah,
11:14
Speaker 1: it's an oily, oily, weasily add and they have it
11:18
Speaker 1: like it's you know, they've got the Wells Fargo guy
11:21
Speaker 1: like running in the background to distract you, to make
11:24
Speaker 1: you think about your childhood, playing with stage coaches and stuff,
11:27
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Warren is somewhere like blood dripping out of
11:30
Speaker 1: our eyeballs. Yeah, yeah, for Elizabeth Warren circus two ten right,
11:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I mean she's watching the commercial and
11:41
Speaker 1: crying blood tears. No, I'm saying, Elizabeth Warren circus, who's
11:45
Speaker 1: who doesn't ten would have? I think these days she's
11:47
Speaker 1: like whatever, No, man, she laid into him? Oh did
11:51
Speaker 1: she go after him? Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta see
11:55
Speaker 1: that that video. That was pretty awesome. Well, good for her.
11:59
Speaker 1: When was that may oh, when when she lambasted him? Yeah,
12:03
Speaker 1: it was right after it happened. It was like, you know,
12:05
Speaker 1: a month, a month or two ago, okay, because I
12:07
Speaker 1: feel like she was a little more lionized in the
12:10
Speaker 1: last several years than she has been lately. Yeah, I
12:14
Speaker 1: mean she she went after specifically. I mean she just
12:16
Speaker 1: read the riot Act to the CEO. That's good, and
12:19
Speaker 1: was like, are you going to give back your bonus money?
12:24
Speaker 1: Like this happened on your watch? Why don't you give
12:26
Speaker 1: that money back? He was like, who are you talking
12:28
Speaker 1: to me? But one of the one of the things
12:31
Speaker 1: I wanted to say though about banks, um that that
12:34
Speaker 1: is just such in such stark contrast to the idea
12:37
Speaker 1: where you used to have to um contribute your own money. Um.
12:42
Speaker 1: The reserve requirements of banks. I was looking into this, Chuck,
12:44
Speaker 1: you ready, if if if there's a ten percent reserve
12:49
Speaker 1: requirement of um that a bank has, and they they
12:55
Speaker 1: have a hundred dollars, they can loan out ninety of
12:58
Speaker 1: that hundred dollars to somebody, right, Okay, so they have
13:02
Speaker 1: a ten percent in reserve. Now, let's say that that
13:04
Speaker 1: person um writes a check for that ninety dollars, like
13:09
Speaker 1: they borrowed that hundred bucks to um to, or they
13:13
Speaker 1: borrowed that ninety bucks to pay off a debt. So
13:16
Speaker 1: they write a check for that ninety bucks to somebody
13:19
Speaker 1: who banks with that bank, So that ninety bucks comes
13:21
Speaker 1: right back to that bank, right they they can loan
13:28
Speaker 1: of that, and so on and so forth until this
13:31
Speaker 1: one hundred dollar chunk can be like loaned and repaid
13:35
Speaker 1: and loan and repaid all over the place, which makes sense,
13:38
Speaker 1: and it keeps everything kind of going um financially. But
13:43
Speaker 1: the problem is that if something happens, if a panic
13:45
Speaker 1: sets in. This is why runs on banks are so
13:47
Speaker 1: um such travesties, and everybody calls in their loan all
13:52
Speaker 1: at once. Well, there's a lot of people who are
13:54
Speaker 1: calling in that one single hundred dollar hundred dollars rather
13:59
Speaker 1: than having the time to pay to to to pay
14:04
Speaker 1: it back and then call it in from somebody else
14:06
Speaker 1: and use that to pay the other person back. It's
14:08
Speaker 1: just a big cluster all at once. That makes sense.
14:12
Speaker 1: That's just one of the many interesting things about banks. Yeah,
14:16
Speaker 1: I mean, there are clearly other podcasts that we should
14:19
Speaker 1: tie to this one, I think, but since this one
14:22
Speaker 1: is about not banking, we'll take a break. Here, go
14:26
Speaker 1: withdraw our funds, and we'll be right back. All right. So,
14:53
Speaker 1: if you live in modern society today, uh, it is
14:58
Speaker 1: pretty tough to get by without a bank. Um, most
15:05
Speaker 1: cases these days, you have well I don't know about
15:09
Speaker 1: most cases, but in many cases you have automatic deposits
15:12
Speaker 1: of your of your work checks. A lot of people
15:16
Speaker 1: pay their bills wirelessly online directly from their bank. Uh.
15:22
Speaker 1: You might have a student loan, you might have a
15:24
Speaker 1: car loan, you might have your house mortgage, you might
15:27
Speaker 1: pay your credit card bills. All of this stuff is
15:30
Speaker 1: running through a bank most likely. And you would think
15:34
Speaker 1: it's probably impossible to not have a bank account these days.
15:39
Speaker 1: And I would say pretty much all Americans have them.
15:42
Speaker 1: Not true, You well know, pretty much all Americans do. Like, yeah,
15:50
Speaker 1: but that's not all. No, No, it's true. Yes, seven
15:53
Speaker 1: percent of Americans do not have bank accounts. About nine
15:56
Speaker 1: million people last year in two thousand fifteen did not
15:59
Speaker 1: have bank accounts. Not million peoples, a lot of people. No,
16:02
Speaker 1: it really is, um, and apparently that's that's households, sorry,
16:05
Speaker 1: not people. Yeah, you're right, you're right. That is a
16:08
Speaker 1: big distinction to UM. And the f d i C said, man,
16:12
Speaker 1: that's the lowest since we've been tracking this by far,
16:16
Speaker 1: And someone said, well, how long have you been tracking this?
16:19
Speaker 1: They said, well, of the last six years really yeah,
16:23
Speaker 1: which I'm like, really that's when they started tracking it.
16:26
Speaker 1: But apparently so two thousand nine. So if you want
16:29
Speaker 1: another number, that's the nine million American households don't have
16:32
Speaker 1: bank accounts at all. Uh. Then there are twenty five
16:35
Speaker 1: million households in addition to that, so that makes almost
16:39
Speaker 1: that's like thirty four million households, which that's a substantial
16:43
Speaker 1: number at this point. The twenty million or what's called
16:46
Speaker 1: underbank meaning they may have a bank account, but they
16:50
Speaker 1: don't use the bank account. Yeah, they don't use it because, UM,
16:56
Speaker 1: they are probably afraid of overdraft fees, or they have uh,
17:04
Speaker 1: maybe a bank account that got grandfathered in so that
17:07
Speaker 1: they don't have to pay minimum amount fees UM and
17:13
Speaker 1: who knows. There's all sorts of reasons for people to
17:15
Speaker 1: not use a bank account that they they have, UM,
17:19
Speaker 1: but probably chief among them is overdraft, which you'll talk
17:21
Speaker 1: more about. Yeah, and the majority of these underbank people
17:24
Speaker 1: in the United States are poor usually um, A lot
17:30
Speaker 1: of times, their minorities, a lot of times they are
17:33
Speaker 1: less educated. Um. And these communities, I mean, there's there's
17:38
Speaker 1: a few reasons why they may not want to use
17:39
Speaker 1: a bank. One, maybe they don't trust banks. And if
17:42
Speaker 1: you look in the history of the United States, are
17:45
Speaker 1: certainly even we're just talking about the Wells Fargo scandal.
17:48
Speaker 1: Like when you see stuff like that on the news, um,
17:52
Speaker 1: it should be upsetting to everyone. But obviously if you're
17:55
Speaker 1: poor and you don't have a lot of money, that
17:57
Speaker 1: will that may scare you into not wanting to use
18:00
Speaker 1: a bank at all, right, you know. Yeah. And another
18:04
Speaker 1: one is that the overdraft fees, which so basically, I
18:09
Speaker 1: guess in two thousand one, the current overdraft fee idea
18:15
Speaker 1: scam you could call. It was set up as a
18:17
Speaker 1: way to generate like way more money for banks, right.
18:21
Speaker 1: And the way that overdraft fees generate money for banks
18:25
Speaker 1: is when you are overdrafted on your account, they can
18:30
Speaker 1: charge you a fee for covering that amount, right, and
18:34
Speaker 1: then you still have to deposit that amount, but they
18:38
Speaker 1: don't return your check. They cover, They cover the check
18:41
Speaker 1: that you paid, but they charge you a fee, say
18:43
Speaker 1: like thirty five dollars for that amount. And it seems
18:46
Speaker 1: fine and dandy and everything's fine. But there's something called
18:49
Speaker 1: clearing checks from high to low, right, okay, where the
18:54
Speaker 1: bank will clear checks in descending order of value. So
18:59
Speaker 1: if you have of UM a hundred dollars in in
19:03
Speaker 1: your bank account and you have a checkout for a
19:06
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars, check out for twenty dollars, to
19:10
Speaker 1: check out for five, and to check out for fifteen dollars. Right,
19:14
Speaker 1: if they cleared the lower amounts first and then the
19:18
Speaker 1: last one, only the last one would bounce and create
19:21
Speaker 1: an overdraft fee. If they start with the bigger one,
19:24
Speaker 1: well you've got an overdraft draft fee right out of
19:27
Speaker 1: the gate. But then you also have three more because
19:29
Speaker 1: the other smaller checks all bounced as well, and so
19:32
Speaker 1: instead of one over draft fee, they get to charge
19:35
Speaker 1: you four overdraft fees UM. And that was a huge
19:38
Speaker 1: thing when when that was finally reported and exposed, and
19:42
Speaker 1: that actually resulted in that UM rule that now you
19:46
Speaker 1: UM either I think you have to opt in for
19:49
Speaker 1: overdraft protection, whereas before you had to opt out. Yeah.
19:53
Speaker 1: I remember back in the day when I was broke
19:57
Speaker 1: as back and I would overdraft things in there, I remember,
20:03
Speaker 1: and I knew nothing about how things worked with finances.
20:07
Speaker 1: Still don't really, but um, I just remember thinking, like
20:11
Speaker 1: I would rather it's say no, you you like, don't
20:14
Speaker 1: cover me and then charge me. Just just say no,
20:17
Speaker 1: you don't have the funds, right, that's the smart way
20:19
Speaker 1: to do it. So I never understood, like it was
20:23
Speaker 1: like I think they even called it overdraft insurance maybe
20:27
Speaker 1: at the time, or I might be making it up.
20:29
Speaker 1: I seem to remember them saying that, and I was like,
20:31
Speaker 1: I don't want that, like just to like let the
20:33
Speaker 1: check bounce and I'll take it up with them. Yeah.
20:37
Speaker 1: The way it was marketed though, was like hey, we
20:40
Speaker 1: we we value you. We want to make sure that
20:43
Speaker 1: you can pay all your bills. So if something happens
20:45
Speaker 1: and you're overdrafted, we'll cover it. We're just going to
20:47
Speaker 1: charge you a fee. And it sounds good. But again,
20:51
Speaker 1: when you go from high to low and all of
20:53
Speaker 1: a sudden your overdraft fees go from one to four
20:56
Speaker 1: or five or however many, um, you know, that's a
20:59
Speaker 1: huge problem. Well, and the people that are overdrafting in
21:02
Speaker 1: the people that are at least able to afford those
21:04
Speaker 1: fees exactly. So it's a disproportionate burden on the poor,
21:09
Speaker 1: which makes it as a scam, one of the more
21:12
Speaker 1: evil scams around. Yes, it's just wrong man. So so yeah,
21:17
Speaker 1: the idea that that if you are if you open
21:21
Speaker 1: an account, you should not opt in for overdraft protection.
21:25
Speaker 1: And that's easy to say when when you're talking about
21:28
Speaker 1: checks for like, um, you're writing a check for a
21:31
Speaker 1: mountain dew and some cheetos, you know, who cares if
21:35
Speaker 1: you if you're if you're short for that, you can
21:36
Speaker 1: go without that. But you know, when you're talking about
21:39
Speaker 1: like your rent check or like an actual grocery bill
21:41
Speaker 1: or something like that, you know, it sucks that that
21:45
Speaker 1: you can't get that stuff. But it's better to have
21:48
Speaker 1: to put a couple of things back than to pay
21:50
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars for one two dollar item that that
21:53
Speaker 1: you went over by. Yeah, that's a good point. And
21:57
Speaker 1: this was in my case too. This is also back
21:59
Speaker 1: in the day when you uh, I mean a lot
22:01
Speaker 1: of times it was a mystery how much you had
22:03
Speaker 1: in your account, Like you couldn't just get on your
22:05
Speaker 1: phone and and before you write the check and be like, oh, well, no,
22:09
Speaker 1: I don't have enough money to cover this. Yeah, because
22:11
Speaker 1: even if you balanced your checkbook, sometimes you forgot to
22:14
Speaker 1: carry the one like it wasn't always a d percent
22:16
Speaker 1: in accurate. And if you had a life, you didn't
22:18
Speaker 1: necessarily rectify your bank checkbook every day. Oh wait, what
22:23
Speaker 1: is balancing a checkbook means? Serious? Yeah? Thank god for
22:27
Speaker 1: my wife. Um. So another reason you might avoid a bank,
22:32
Speaker 1: uh is philosophically. You may um, you may have that
22:37
Speaker 1: there may be a longstanding distrust of banks in your
22:39
Speaker 1: family that you don't want to put your money in.
22:42
Speaker 1: Or you may just want to be like, you know what,
22:44
Speaker 1: I don't want to take part in this modern society.
22:47
Speaker 1: I want to kind of drop out a bit. And
22:50
Speaker 1: a really good first move is to shut your bank
22:53
Speaker 1: account down. That's a big statement. Oh yeah it is,
22:56
Speaker 1: you know, but a lot of people that are under
23:01
Speaker 1: banked and don't have accounts aren't. They're on purpose. It's
23:05
Speaker 1: not some philosophical statement. A lot of times is simply
23:10
Speaker 1: because uh, they are poor and they don't have a
23:13
Speaker 1: lot of alternatives. Yeah. And the other thing about um
23:16
Speaker 1: about not having a bank account. Not only do you
23:19
Speaker 1: not have a bank account, you also are like basically
23:22
Speaker 1: just avoiding banks altogether. There's plenty of other things that
23:24
Speaker 1: banks offer, like loans and mortgage stuff like that. Yeah, yeah,
23:30
Speaker 1: maybe some free nasty coffee UM. But the so when
23:36
Speaker 1: you're when you don't have a banking account, that's like
23:38
Speaker 1: the the most basic unit of the banking world. Right.
23:43
Speaker 1: If you don't have that, you obviously aren't going to
23:45
Speaker 1: be exposed all these other things that can help things
23:48
Speaker 1: like um build your credit history through like a revolving
23:51
Speaker 1: loan UM or a mortgage or a car loan or
23:54
Speaker 1: something like that that you can build up your credit
23:57
Speaker 1: for and ultimately save money. UM. So when you don't
24:01
Speaker 1: have a bank account for whatever reason, you are effectively
24:05
Speaker 1: out of the banking system. The problem is, you can
24:08
Speaker 1: live parallel to the banking system outside of it, but
24:12
Speaker 1: it can be really dangerous, especially if you're just dealing
24:15
Speaker 1: with cash, because that cash has to stay somewhere, and
24:18
Speaker 1: whether it's on you or in your mattress or in
24:22
Speaker 1: a coffee can in your backyard, you're you're exposed for
24:26
Speaker 1: for having that UM readily available to anybody who finds
24:30
Speaker 1: it or comes into your house with a gun to
24:32
Speaker 1: get it, which is another thing that sucks. Yeah, there's
24:36
Speaker 1: no insurance for that. You know, if you lose your cash,
24:38
Speaker 1: you lose your cash. So one thing that people rely
24:42
Speaker 1: on sometimes these days as an alternative source for a
24:45
Speaker 1: loan at least is something called a payday lender. You
24:49
Speaker 1: might have seen these little brick and mortar shops with
24:51
Speaker 1: UM with the the neon sign in the window. Cash
24:57
Speaker 1: now available to you, uh X business day stuff like that. UM,
25:03
Speaker 1: you can you can go to these places. It's a
25:05
Speaker 1: quick application process. UH won't affect your credit score sometimes
25:10
Speaker 1: UM that you know, they'll say that if it doesn't,
25:13
Speaker 1: and you can get money like the next business day.
25:15
Speaker 1: If you want three hundred bucks, you can go in
25:17
Speaker 1: there and get three hundred bucks. But you're gonna pay
25:20
Speaker 1: a fee on that UM and it's big, they say,
25:25
Speaker 1: the fees if you pay back within eight days, it
25:28
Speaker 1: works out if you if you put it on a
25:30
Speaker 1: scale of a p R annual percentage rate of like
25:33
Speaker 1: three d is what you're paying on that loan. I
25:37
Speaker 1: saw one for a hundred dollar loan on cash net
25:40
Speaker 1: usas site. UM for a one hundred loan pay back
25:44
Speaker 1: in eight days for their flat fee and the interest
25:47
Speaker 1: you pay six It's one of those things, man, when
25:53
Speaker 1: you see this and you're like, man, how can you
25:55
Speaker 1: not look at it as bilking poor people out of
25:59
Speaker 1: more money? Well, some people who use payday lenders say, hey,
26:03
Speaker 1: if you look at this, you when you look at
26:05
Speaker 1: their rates in terms, it's all laid out. It's not
26:08
Speaker 1: some crazy percentage I have to figure out and come
26:10
Speaker 1: up with compounding interest or anything like that. It is
26:13
Speaker 1: it says, if you borrow one hundred dollars, you have
26:17
Speaker 1: to pay us back one hundred and fifteen dollars. There's
26:20
Speaker 1: a like a ten dollar service fee, and then for
26:22
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars it's five five dollars in interest. Right,
26:26
Speaker 1: So that's what you owe us is a hundred and
26:27
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars. It doesn't require a lot of thought, a
26:30
Speaker 1: lot of um. There's not a lot of wiggle room
26:33
Speaker 1: for them to um to add more fees or anything
26:36
Speaker 1: like that. It's you know what you have to pay back.
26:39
Speaker 1: But that said, they they very quickly can comprise a
26:45
Speaker 1: trap payday lending trap that people get caught in, especially
26:50
Speaker 1: when they start rolling over loans. Yeah, and you know
26:53
Speaker 1: when I said it's like hard to not look at
26:55
Speaker 1: it that way, it's because it's it's not like it
26:58
Speaker 1: just feels like, hey, these people have their backs up
27:01
Speaker 1: against the wall and they really need two hundred bucks exactly,
27:03
Speaker 1: so you can come get it from us. But then
27:06
Speaker 1: of course there are another complete other set of people
27:10
Speaker 1: that say, yeah, dude, that's the deal, and you know what,
27:13
Speaker 1: don't use that place then right right there. The thing
27:18
Speaker 1: is that some people are saying, Okay, that's a that's
27:20
Speaker 1: a valid philosophy, but you need to have an alternative
27:24
Speaker 1: that's fair for people, because people need loans, people get overextended,
27:28
Speaker 1: emergencies come up, there's just things that people need money
27:31
Speaker 1: for legitimately, and like they shouldn't have to be preyed upon.
27:37
Speaker 1: So one of the alternatives that's been proposed is to
27:40
Speaker 1: get the regular standard banking industry involved in small um
27:46
Speaker 1: short term loans. Is what a paid a loan is
27:50
Speaker 1: um and six to ten times less, right exactly. But
27:55
Speaker 1: you would, as far as the bank's concerned, the customer
27:58
Speaker 1: would still be paying way more than what the standard
28:01
Speaker 1: APR that a normal bank charges, but to the customer
28:05
Speaker 1: it would be way less than what they're paying to
28:08
Speaker 1: the payday lending place. UM. I'm not sure why banks
28:12
Speaker 1: aren't into this yet. I don't know. I got the
28:14
Speaker 1: impression that there might be some regulation that prevents them
28:17
Speaker 1: from being involved, or they're just not interested. But that
28:20
Speaker 1: seems to be the key, because that also would seem
28:23
Speaker 1: to be a pretty good gateway to getting people who
28:25
Speaker 1: wanted to have a bank account into the banking um
28:29
Speaker 1: network by starting out with a small a small loan.
28:33
Speaker 1: You know you would think so you would? UM? What else?
28:39
Speaker 1: Prepaid credit cards? Those are more and more popular these days.
28:42
Speaker 1: You can get them at a convenience store. You can
28:45
Speaker 1: load money onto it, use it like a regular old
28:47
Speaker 1: debit card. What I say, credit card, debit card, and
28:51
Speaker 1: it's just what you think it is. UM. Here's the
28:54
Speaker 1: deal with those is uh? They are really really easy
28:59
Speaker 1: to scam. UM. In two thousand thirteen, the Federal Trade
29:02
Speaker 1: Commission got eighty five thousand complaints totally forty three million
29:07
Speaker 1: dollars in in scam frauds with debit cards. What do
29:12
Speaker 1: you mean like, there's no they're they're almost impossible to
29:17
Speaker 1: track anything after purchase, impossible to trace. So it's it's
29:23
Speaker 1: really easy. It's like a prime opportunity for someone to
29:28
Speaker 1: to scam someone. Like if someone says, hey, uh, we
29:31
Speaker 1: request payment from a prepaid credit debit card, then once
29:35
Speaker 1: they have that information, they can just go use it.
29:38
Speaker 1: And it's not like they have some bank behind it
29:40
Speaker 1: that can trace it and track it down and it's
29:43
Speaker 1: it's it's just a really easy way to scam people
29:45
Speaker 1: out of money. UM. And that's just one of the
29:47
Speaker 1: problems with them. Well, despite that, the UM they've grown
29:51
Speaker 1: incredibly in popularity in the US Between two thousand three
29:55
Speaker 1: and two thousand twelve, the amount deposited I'm prepaid debit
29:59
Speaker 1: card went from one billion to sixty five billion dollars
30:03
Speaker 1: between two thousand three and two thousand nine years up
30:07
Speaker 1: to sixty five billion dollars right from one billion UM.
30:11
Speaker 1: And this this despite the easy scam ability, but also
30:16
Speaker 1: getting kind of scammed by the people who legitimately run
30:20
Speaker 1: these prepaid debit card companies, Like apparently there's fees for
30:24
Speaker 1: everything from like loading your card, which you usually do
30:28
Speaker 1: it an a t M, using an a t M,
30:31
Speaker 1: checking your balance. Um, there's just a lot of additional
30:36
Speaker 1: fees that really kind of quickly sapped the amount of
30:39
Speaker 1: money on your prepaid debit card. So fortunately UM, the
30:43
Speaker 1: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stepped in and as of the
30:48
Speaker 1: last month, is it December yet? Okay? So as of
30:53
Speaker 1: October of two thousand and sixteen, there's new rules that
30:56
Speaker 1: say that if you are prepaid debit card company, you
30:59
Speaker 1: have to disclose your terms up front. You have to
31:02
Speaker 1: let people UM find out their balance for free. UM
31:06
Speaker 1: cuts on on some of the fees. They have to opt.
31:08
Speaker 1: They have to be able to UM have the option
31:11
Speaker 1: to not have overdraft charges, overdraft protection. It's a lot.
31:15
Speaker 1: It's a lot more regulated now as of last month. Yeah,
31:19
Speaker 1: but I wonder what if it's the same thing as
31:21
Speaker 1: like banking. If they they're like, sure, we'll disclose that
31:24
Speaker 1: in a fifty page document and that no one ever reads.
31:28
Speaker 1: Like what they need to do is say how they
31:31
Speaker 1: need to disclose this. Yeah, that's true. Some guys to
31:35
Speaker 1: come to your house, maybe bring a little dinner and
31:39
Speaker 1: and just tell you straight up. All right, I got
31:43
Speaker 1: a little worked up, so I'm gonna go splash my
31:45
Speaker 1: face with egnog and how many right back after this?
32:12
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So let's say that you don't feel
32:15
Speaker 1: like getting scammed by anybody. Nope, you just want to
32:19
Speaker 1: be free. Yeah. Uh, what what can you do? What
32:24
Speaker 1: are some of the things you can do? Well, um,
32:29
Speaker 1: there are a few things that you can do. You
32:32
Speaker 1: can try an alternative currency. So if you want to
32:37
Speaker 1: be really weird dollars, that's what you mean. No, I'm
32:41
Speaker 1: talking about Well we've talked about bitcoin. Um, is that
32:45
Speaker 1: even still a thing? Did that go out? No? No,
32:48
Speaker 1: it's still there's much a thing. Yeah, okay, I didn't.
32:50
Speaker 1: I think it's just maturing and growing constantly. So we
32:53
Speaker 1: did an episode on bitcoin. But I had no idea
32:56
Speaker 1: that there are alternative currencies in communities all over the world,
33:02
Speaker 1: but right here in the US and had no idea.
33:06
Speaker 1: And it's a really cool thing, I think. Yeah, like
33:08
Speaker 1: burk shares. You looked into berk shares, right, Yeah, burke
33:11
Speaker 1: Shares a very clever name because it is a western
33:14
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and the Burke Shears launched in two thousand six. Uh.
33:20
Speaker 1: They have sixteen branch offices and four local banks that
33:23
Speaker 1: support where you can actually get a berk share trade
33:27
Speaker 1: in your money for burke shares um four hundred participating businesses.
33:34
Speaker 1: So here's here's what it is, and in fact, I'm
33:36
Speaker 1: even gonna read directly from their website because it just
33:39
Speaker 1: makes a lot more sense. It can get a little convoluted.
33:42
Speaker 1: Can we get some background music? You probably should something
33:46
Speaker 1: berk Shire. So there's a five percent discount, and here's
33:49
Speaker 1: how it works. They follow a hundred dollars UH through
33:53
Speaker 1: a day to explain it. So wait, tell tell us
33:55
Speaker 1: when you start the quote. Right, ready, here we go.
33:59
Speaker 1: You go to a bank and you purchase your birth
34:01
Speaker 1: shares because you want to go to a restaurant that night.
34:03
Speaker 1: Let's say, Uh, you go in with ninety five U S.
34:07
Speaker 1: Dollars and you say I would like to exchange of this,
34:10
Speaker 1: So they give you one hundred birth shares back. Yeah. Right,
34:14
Speaker 1: So you go to your dinner, your dinners, let's say
34:16
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks right on the nose. The restaurant takes
34:19
Speaker 1: your birth shares, takes all one hundred of them. You
34:22
Speaker 1: pay your whole bill and your birth shares, and so
34:24
Speaker 1: you have actually spent ninety five U S. Dollars for
34:27
Speaker 1: a one dollar meal. So you've gotten your little five
34:30
Speaker 1: percent discount. Then the owner of that restaurant has that
34:33
Speaker 1: hundred birth shares they want to deposit that for real money,
34:38
Speaker 1: or let's just say us dollars, return them to that bank.
34:41
Speaker 1: They bring him to the bank and the bank deposits
34:43
Speaker 1: that hundred birk shares and gives the restaurant the ninety
34:46
Speaker 1: five dollars, the same ninety five bucks that you exchange.
34:50
Speaker 1: So in the end you get that five percent discount
34:54
Speaker 1: because all because of that initial exchange, that same ninety
34:59
Speaker 1: five dollars you traded for the Berkshires goes to the
35:01
Speaker 1: business where you spend it. Yeah, So that's yeah, and
35:05
Speaker 1: that's that's the key to this whole alternative hyperlocal currency
35:09
Speaker 1: is that it's intended to keep goods and services and
35:14
Speaker 1: within the community. Yeah, because you can't go spend a
35:17
Speaker 1: Berkshire anywhere else but the Berkshires. They'll say, what is
35:20
Speaker 1: this weird looking bill? Where are you from the future
35:23
Speaker 1: or something? And it's actually very cool looking. It's not
35:25
Speaker 1: weird looking. I looked it up. The one Berkshire unit
35:28
Speaker 1: is uh Mohican, the original inhabitants of the Berkshires. The
35:33
Speaker 1: five is W. E. B. Dubois born in Barrington. The
35:38
Speaker 1: ten is Robin van In, co founder of the community
35:44
Speaker 1: supported Agricultural movement Indian Line Farm. This just keeps getting better.
35:49
Speaker 1: The twenty is Herman Melville, awesome, author of Moby Dick.
35:52
Speaker 1: Of course. The fifty is Norman Rockwell. Is it a
35:56
Speaker 1: Rockwell painting of Rockwell? No, it's just Rockwell. And then
36:01
Speaker 1: the one thousand Berkshire it's a photo of him drunk
36:05
Speaker 1: on account. Yeah, pretty much. The one thousand Berkshire is
36:08
Speaker 1: John Hodgman. Yeah, he's the National Treasure, not just the
36:14
Speaker 1: Berkshire Treasure. Now I'm just kidding. There is no one thousand.
36:17
Speaker 1: But it's cool. They have their own money, and it's
36:19
Speaker 1: like it just is a really really cool thing, like
36:22
Speaker 1: you're you're spending. There's, like I said, four hundred participating businesses,
36:26
Speaker 1: so it seems like a really successful program. And there's
36:30
Speaker 1: a lot others. There's the Toronto Dollars, Salt Spring Dollars,
36:34
Speaker 1: Ithaca Hours, uh, but the Berkshire seems to be like
36:39
Speaker 1: one of the more robust programs. Yeah, I mean I
36:41
Speaker 1: had heard of it before. I hadn't heard of the
36:43
Speaker 1: other ones. I think Detroit has one as well, um,
36:46
Speaker 1: but the Berkshire's i'd heard of before, so it must
36:48
Speaker 1: be doing pretty well well And this is nothing new.
36:50
Speaker 1: In the early, like into the early nineteen hundreds, local
36:54
Speaker 1: currencies were a big thing. Oh yeah, like every bank
36:58
Speaker 1: could legally print money for the federal government finally said no,
37:02
Speaker 1: we're really the only ones who can print money. And
37:04
Speaker 1: there were I think like a hundred or a thousand
37:06
Speaker 1: or ten thousand or some ridiculous amount of currencies in
37:09
Speaker 1: the United States up until like the eighteen sixties. Yeah,
37:12
Speaker 1: that's crazy. What about the m paisa? Have you heard
37:15
Speaker 1: of that before? I hadn't heard of that, but it's
37:17
Speaker 1: it's really pretty cool as well. So m paisa is
37:21
Speaker 1: stands for mobile paysa paysa means um money in Swahili,
37:27
Speaker 1: and it's this kind of new alternative currency that's um
37:31
Speaker 1: come up in Kenya in the last few years, right
37:35
Speaker 1: right right, I forgot that part. Um. So in Kenya
37:39
Speaker 1: most people don't have bank accounts, but they do have
37:42
Speaker 1: cell phones and they rely on cash a lot. Well.
37:45
Speaker 1: As we said before, cash can be very dangerous. There's
37:48
Speaker 1: all sorts of bad guys out there who need or
37:50
Speaker 1: want cash for their own But I don't feel like,
37:53
Speaker 1: you know, going out and doing anything for aside from
37:55
Speaker 1: robbing somebody, right, so cash is dangerous no matter where
37:59
Speaker 1: you are, and uh and and pays. It gets around
38:02
Speaker 1: that by allowing the people with the cell phone. I
38:07
Speaker 1: think it's the country's biggest cell phone provider who's created this.
38:12
Speaker 1: And you can go to one of the cell phone
38:15
Speaker 1: company's kiosks. There's like a hundred thousand of them around
38:18
Speaker 1: the country, and you can say, here's some money, I'd
38:21
Speaker 1: like it deposited as credits on my phone, and all
38:25
Speaker 1: of a sudden you have a phone full of money. Well,
38:27
Speaker 1: the cool thing is you can take that money and
38:30
Speaker 1: transfer it via text to somebody else's phone, and it's
38:34
Speaker 1: as simple as that. It's as simple as that. You
38:36
Speaker 1: go load up your money or your phone with some
38:39
Speaker 1: money at a kiosk, and then it's up to you
38:41
Speaker 1: to spend that money however you want. And you can
38:43
Speaker 1: use your phone to pay things like um for groceries,
38:47
Speaker 1: for water, for goods and services, all using your phone.
38:51
Speaker 1: It's basically what everyone who's thinking about the future of
38:55
Speaker 1: money thinks of when they think of the future of money.
38:57
Speaker 1: That there's not gonna be dollars or anything like that's
38:59
Speaker 1: all to just be credits associated with your name. In
39:02
Speaker 1: this case, with the m PAYSA and Kenya it's associated
39:05
Speaker 1: with your phone number. Yeah, and it's a big deal.
39:08
Speaker 1: Now it's not just in Kenya, it's in Tanzania, m Mozambique, Egypt, UH, Sootho, Ghana, India,
39:16
Speaker 1: UH Democratic Republic of Congo, and then even in a
39:20
Speaker 1: couple of Eastern European countries now Albanian, Romania. They don't
39:24
Speaker 1: think it will spread west but you never know. It's
39:28
Speaker 1: a much bigger deal than anyone thought it was going
39:30
Speaker 1: to be. I think, well supposedly the the there's a
39:34
Speaker 1: big push to keep it from spreading westward by the
39:36
Speaker 1: banking industry because one of the things that makes it
39:40
Speaker 1: so attractive is there's really low overhead involved in this
39:44
Speaker 1: and so the the self, the cell phone company is
39:48
Speaker 1: charging very little interest or fees, so it's way cheaper
39:52
Speaker 1: to borrow or get or use money through the m
39:56
Speaker 1: pays the system than it is through traditional banks. Apparently
39:59
Speaker 1: m pays is just kicking their butts all over the place. Yeah.
40:02
Speaker 1: And of course what has happened then is that the
40:04
Speaker 1: banking lobby has started barking all over the world to
40:08
Speaker 1: block things like MPAs are from coming into their markets. Yeah,
40:12
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying, because they would just completely undermine them.
40:15
Speaker 1: And again, this is basically the future of money. That
40:19
Speaker 1: there's credits associated with your name, which I mean if
40:22
Speaker 1: you if you bank virtually online, um, where you your
40:28
Speaker 1: get your paycheck electronically and you pay your bills um
40:32
Speaker 1: over over websites and all that, like, that's you're already there. Basically,
40:37
Speaker 1: it's just dressed up to kind of look like what
40:40
Speaker 1: you think of as money too, but it's still it's
40:42
Speaker 1: just credits and numbers associated with your name and in
40:45
Speaker 1: this case bank account numbers. This is just with your phone,
40:48
Speaker 1: and it also removes the bank because it puts it
40:50
Speaker 1: on your phone. So it's up to you a lot
40:53
Speaker 1: more closely. Shout out to our our episode on currency.
40:59
Speaker 1: Yes that was a good one. Shout at um. So
41:03
Speaker 1: then there's this other thing. If you want to get
41:06
Speaker 1: a little more hippie dippy even um, if you thought
41:10
Speaker 1: berkshires were crunchy, prepare for the Yeah, I get ready
41:13
Speaker 1: for time banking. Uh. Time banking is a thing where
41:16
Speaker 1: you uh, it's a given give and take an exchange
41:19
Speaker 1: of services, with the core principle being it's all equal.
41:24
Speaker 1: So if I babysit for your kid, you build my deck,
41:29
Speaker 1: and the hours are the same that the the value
41:33
Speaker 1: per hour is the same, right, no matter what you're doing,
41:37
Speaker 1: it's a value. It's a an hour of your time
41:40
Speaker 1: and effort. So it sounded kind of cool. It's like
41:43
Speaker 1: a barter service exchange where basically all you have to
41:48
Speaker 1: do is get people to agree on that core principle
41:51
Speaker 1: and then you have kind of the same cool thing
41:53
Speaker 1: going on in your community. Um. So I went to
41:57
Speaker 1: their website and there's these little there's a map if
42:00
Speaker 1: you can view by map, like the places where you
42:02
Speaker 1: can time bank, and I clicked on. Boy, I feel
42:07
Speaker 1: like I clicked on about fifty of them, and none
42:11
Speaker 1: of them had any activity within like three or four years.
42:15
Speaker 1: I could see that. So I don't know if time
42:17
Speaker 1: banking took off like they thought. And so then I thought,
42:21
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.
42:23
Speaker 1: I was like, let's go to like Burlington, Vermont, And
42:27
Speaker 1: sure enough, Burlington had had some time banking going on
42:30
Speaker 1: in like the last week, but other places in Vermont didn't.
42:34
Speaker 1: I was like, let me go to some really crunchy towns,
42:37
Speaker 1: and a couple of them looks like they were still
42:40
Speaker 1: using it. But it doesn't look like I don't know
42:42
Speaker 1: when this article is written, but I'm not sure how
42:45
Speaker 1: viable it still is. Well, I mean, I like the
42:48
Speaker 1: the sentiment as a concept. It's cool. But but I mean,
42:52
Speaker 1: is are all hours of there, all types of effort equal?
42:58
Speaker 1: If you agree that they are, they are? I mean, yeah,
43:01
Speaker 1: sure in that case, for sure, But I I it
43:03
Speaker 1: just seemed ripe for introducing like um leechers and and
43:08
Speaker 1: hard feelings and resentiment and stuff like that. Yeah, I
43:12
Speaker 1: got is he like, well, you fix my fridge, I'll
43:16
Speaker 1: I'll watch your driveway. What do you mean you know,
43:19
Speaker 1: I'll stand out there and watch it, make sure it's good.
43:21
Speaker 1: I'm a driveway watcher. It's an hour. Did you say challenge?
43:25
Speaker 1: Did you say washer? No? No, no watcher. Rain Showers said,
43:29
Speaker 1: we can't challenge each other's hours. Uh. And then we
43:34
Speaker 1: got to finish up with this dude, Mark Boyle, the
43:37
Speaker 1: moneyless Man yep, which I thought this was pretty admirable. Yeah,
43:42
Speaker 1: he's He's written a couple of books, one called I
43:45
Speaker 1: think the first one was called The moneyless Man Colin
43:48
Speaker 1: A Year of Free Economic Living, and then a more recently,
43:52
Speaker 1: one called What Have I Done? The more recently called
43:58
Speaker 1: The Moneyless Manifesto. Uh, both of which are available for
44:02
Speaker 1: purchase unnoticed. But the money doesn't go to him. They
44:05
Speaker 1: just dump it into a landfill and it goes to him.
44:07
Speaker 1: But in his uh, I don't want to slag him.
44:10
Speaker 1: He does offer it completely free online. Oh that's cool.
44:14
Speaker 1: If you want to read it for free, uh, it said,
44:16
Speaker 1: or if you'd like to support the author, you can
44:18
Speaker 1: buy the paperback. So he was, Um, he basically just said,
44:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna live without money for three years. Yeah, it's
44:25
Speaker 1: like an experiment. He's like, Uh, have you ever heard
44:27
Speaker 1: of a J. Jacobs? Is that the guy who traded
44:30
Speaker 1: up from a paper clip to a house? No, he's
44:33
Speaker 1: just uh, he's a writer in uh in New York
44:35
Speaker 1: that has done Um. I mean I think they call
44:38
Speaker 1: it stunt writing, which cheapens it a bit. I think
44:42
Speaker 1: because he's awesome, but um, yeah, he'll do things like
44:45
Speaker 1: he did one called the Year of Living Biblically, where
44:48
Speaker 1: he completely just lived according to the Bible's practices and
44:51
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So a J like is probably down
44:54
Speaker 1: with this Mark Boil guy, because a J lives in
44:56
Speaker 1: New York, so he wouldn't live moneyless, No, I don't.
45:01
Speaker 1: Yeah he Mark Boyle went out to the woods, right, Yeah,
45:04
Speaker 1: well he a j listens to the show. Oh hey,
45:08
Speaker 1: um so this Mark who Mark Boyle may listen to
45:11
Speaker 1: the show. Who knows if it is free? Um? But
45:15
Speaker 1: he uh he went out and lived in the woods
45:18
Speaker 1: and sustained himself through farming, foraging, em bartering, right and
45:25
Speaker 1: um he basically just said like like money doesn't exist
45:29
Speaker 1: to me, not like, uh, you could give me money
45:32
Speaker 1: and I can use it for something like that. Like
45:34
Speaker 1: he just didn't use money at all. And apparently he
45:37
Speaker 1: said he was way happier during this time, like it
45:40
Speaker 1: made him more creative. He had to get by with
45:42
Speaker 1: his personality or on his personality, so had to make
45:44
Speaker 1: sure it was a good one. Yeah, that one that
45:46
Speaker 1: really jumped out at me is something beneficial? Like I
45:51
Speaker 1: didn't think about that. Like he literally was, like my
45:53
Speaker 1: currency was was me and my character, And how can
46:00
Speaker 1: not work on that if that's what you're counting on?
46:03
Speaker 1: Can't be a jerk to everybody, right, you know you
46:05
Speaker 1: gotta like you gotta be a good person. Yeah, No
46:08
Speaker 1: one wants to give a jerk. A free bag of carrots.
46:11
Speaker 1: You know that's a T shirt. Sure he's Irish by
46:14
Speaker 1: the way too, which means he's a great person. Right.
46:18
Speaker 1: Maybe he was at our show in Dublin that wasn't free. No,
46:23
Speaker 1: I guess he could have snuck in this theft count.
46:26
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind. He would have had to have explained
46:29
Speaker 1: himself that we take stow aways. We do. Don't encourage that.
46:34
Speaker 1: You're like, we didn't talk about this. Ah, you got
46:38
Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else. Let's see, don't feed
46:43
Speaker 1: your baby's junk food or alcohol wise words across the board, yes,
46:48
Speaker 1: no matter the episode agreed. If you want to know
46:51
Speaker 1: more about living without a bank account, you can take
46:53
Speaker 1: those words in the search bar at how stuff works
46:55
Speaker 1: dot com. And since I said how stuff works, it's
46:59
Speaker 1: time for listening amount. I'm gonna call this uh cool
47:05
Speaker 1: email from cool Kid. Hey guys, I am Ryan uh
47:09
Speaker 1: Gun Sorrowsky. I'm sixteen years old. I don listened to
47:14
Speaker 1: your show, UM since two thousand and ten, when I
47:17
Speaker 1: was just ten years old. Absolutely, I wanted to email
47:20
Speaker 1: you guys for so long, UM, and I'm finally doing that.
47:24
Speaker 1: I found your show through my cousin, and when I
47:26
Speaker 1: first started listening, I downloaded all the podcast to my
47:29
Speaker 1: small iPod, all that could hold, and I listened almost
47:32
Speaker 1: every night before I go to sleep or to go
47:35
Speaker 1: to sleep with wonderful learning and entertainment, and you two
47:37
Speaker 1: are masters of So I like this kid all over
47:40
Speaker 1: the I do too. Last year, you came to Philadelphia
47:42
Speaker 1: for the live show on Public Relations and I was there.
47:46
Speaker 1: I was in awe to see you do your show live.
47:49
Speaker 1: When I was there, I got me thinking I should
47:51
Speaker 1: complete my task of emailing both of you. So he
47:54
Speaker 1: came up with an idea and how to share his
47:56
Speaker 1: story with how he's diagnosed with type one diabetes on
48:00
Speaker 1: August seven, fourteen. He said, with that came a different
48:03
Speaker 1: world than the one I knew before. It was tough,
48:06
Speaker 1: but I knew that others would Type one. I've had
48:08
Speaker 1: it so much harder than I. I'm doing well and
48:11
Speaker 1: I'm healthy, which is something I'm proud of. Another reason
48:14
Speaker 1: I'm writing is maybe you could take this on as
48:16
Speaker 1: a topic, maybe a two parter, Type one as one
48:19
Speaker 1: part in Type two as another. Not a bad idea,
48:22
Speaker 1: not a bad idea. The reason I want to make
48:24
Speaker 1: that request is that a lot of people don't understand
48:26
Speaker 1: the difference between the two and you two being the
48:29
Speaker 1: best at explaining things that I know. I thought you
48:32
Speaker 1: could totally explain it excellently. Man, this kid has mastered flattery.
48:37
Speaker 1: He's the best. He's I like this guy a lot.
48:40
Speaker 1: You have shaped my mind. You too, have shaped my
48:42
Speaker 1: mind from the very start. Keep doing what you're doing
48:44
Speaker 1: and keep being the best. Much love, Ryan gunt Siowski
48:49
Speaker 1: from Pennsylvania. Thanks a lot, Ryan, We appreciate that. If
48:54
Speaker 1: you want to put this on listener mail, I wouldn't mind.
48:56
Speaker 1: Wink wink, nudge nudge. What a cool guy. Yeah, he's
49:00
Speaker 1: a cool dude, Ryan. We appreciate it. We will put
49:03
Speaker 1: that on the great list of ideas and maybe we'll
49:06
Speaker 1: do that one day. Yeah. And you know what, Ryan,
49:08
Speaker 1: if we ever come back and do a show and
49:10
Speaker 1: Philly or anywhere near you that you can get to
49:13
Speaker 1: you my friend or on the guest list. Nice, You'll
49:16
Speaker 1: just have to remind us of that hi writing us
49:19
Speaker 1: and saying hey give me free tickets in the subject line.
49:23
Speaker 1: Chuck will be like, wait, who are you? You will
49:26
Speaker 1: have to show us some idea, though, because there's so
49:29
Speaker 1: many people who will try to fake it. Now, yes,
49:31
Speaker 1: and you will probably have to come with your parents
49:33
Speaker 1: and that'll probably be the tickets are left thunder. Okay,
49:37
Speaker 1: so we've hammered all this out. This is a thrilling
49:40
Speaker 1: end to this episode. If you want to get in
49:43
Speaker 1: touch with this, like cool dude, Ryan did, you can
49:46
Speaker 1: tweet to us I'm at josh um Clark and then
49:49
Speaker 1: the official s y s K one is s y
49:51
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can hang out with Chuck on
49:54
Speaker 1: Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff you Should Know.
49:58
Speaker 1: You can send us an email this podcast at howstuf
50:01
Speaker 1: Works dot com and has always joined us at our
50:02
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
50:12
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
50:14
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com