The relationship between fdr and stalin, the history of money and the use of public shaming in the internet age. Plus youll be able to watch as cspans latest book, first ladies, rolls off the printing press. All this and more every weekend on booktv. Now on booktv, kabir sehgal, Vice President of emerging Market Equities at jpmorgan looks at the origins of money around the world and the role its played throughout human history. He is in conversation with historian Douglas Brinkley at book people in austin texas. [laughter] hey everybody. Thank you guys so much for coming out today. This is exciting. At least im excited. I hope you guys are too and youll give some indication of that by applause. [applause] welcome to book people, and thank you so much for coming out on this beautiful saturday afternoon to celebrate littture with us at your local independent bookstore. It should go without saying that it is only through your participation at events like this one that we are able to host them. So thank you so much for perpetuating the cycle of creativity in austin and helping us to bring fascinating and innovative authors like mr. Sehgal to our community. Were thrilled to have california beer say gal with us this evening both of these authors have independently revealed astonishing truths about the world we live in so it should be revelatory to have them here together. California beer say gal has an impressive resume. He is the author of three previous works walk in my shoes with andrew young, and a bucket of blessings, with his mother is that close . He served as an officer in the u. S. Marine reserves, and he is a term member on the council of foreign relations. Douglas brinkley, of course s a professor of history at rice university, a cbs news historian and a contributing editor at vanity fair. Seven of his books have been New York Times notable books of the year and the Chicago Tribune has dubbed him americas new past master. So without further ado, please help me welcome Benton Brinkley who will then welcome Douglas Brinkley and kabir sehgal. [applause] hello, ladies and gentlemen, and i would like to welcome my dad, Douglas Brinkley, whos worked at rice university, and i would like everybody to honor kabir sehgal for his new book, coined. [applause] thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you benton. Kabir and i are old friends, and ive been a professor of history for a long time, and ive never been more proud of somebody ive gotten to know who has worked so incredibly hard in so many different areas, not just on wall street in the financial world, but as a writer somebody who worked with a civil rights hero, andrew young on a book someone whos put the idea of jazz and diplomacy together, somebody who just won a grammy award trying to foster jazz diplomacy with cuba and for doing just this year won a grammy for latin jazz. Hes an amazingly talented guy. Youre going to hear more from him on different books meaning hes going to write a lot more, i have a feeling but tonight were going to talk about coined which has become a New York Times best seller. Its just right out of the gate and it is a unbelievably great read. People are comparing it, the New York Times has compared it to said if you like Elizabeth Gilberts eat, pray love, coined is the book for you. I hope he gets those Elizabeth GilbertSales Numbers going for him [laughter] but it was a very great writeup he had in the times, and the book is taking hold of the country right now. Its wonderful to have you here, kabir. I wanted to start by asking you you know what why did you ever decide to work on wall street . Um, first of all great to be here. Great to be at book people, and thank you for being here as part of the event. I started working on wall street in 2008, just a few months before the credit crisis began. And i reluctantly worked at wall street started working at wall street because i found myself working on the kerry campaign. He lost, and i needed to get a job, so i took a job on wall street. And, you know, when i arrived the world was sort of falling apart. People were losing their houses, people the stock market was going down, and i focused on emerging market investments. So what was happening in america was also affecting what was happening in the emerging world. And i kept asking this question what is it about money that makes us act so irrationally, that makes us act so bizarrely and foolishly . And so i started writing and researching this topic and i got into the field of sort of brain sciences, right . Whats happening in your minds when you think of money . Like when i mention the word money to you, your skin con kick tan city is increasing. Theyve done brain scans of people high on cocaine, and theyve compared it to people who are making money and they find that the brain scans are virtually identical. Theyve taken brain scans of people men looking at pictures of naked women dead bodies and money, and what got the most activation in part of the brain was money. I found this fascinating. So i just kept on researching and researching and my career on wall street took me all around the world to over 25 countries exploring this idea of what is money and how does it have such a powerful influence on our lives. And what were some of how did you its such a big topic. Were you influenced by any books . What was your early reading you had to do to just get yourself in gear . Yeah. Some of the books i mean, again, starting with that question, why are we so irrational when it comes to money, i started with the work of behavioral economists, so a psychologist who won the nobel prize in economics, he comes up with this idea of cognitive bias access. Anyone play the lottery here . No . My dad plays the lottery every week, and i said, dad, why do you play the lottery every week . Well, i see it on the news and theres a person always standing there with a which can, and maybe i could win it. One tomb i won i matched three or four numbers and i got 400. I said dad, theres a zero almost a 0 chance you can win. The economist explains this by its irrational activity thats going on in the mind. The more likely you can remember things, you start to inflate the probability of them actually happen right . So celebrities celebrities are celebrities more likely to to get divorced . You might say yes but its because you see it more up in the news. More often in the news. My odyssey began looking at the bank thinking fast thinking slow that was happening in the brain, where did the brain come from an evolutionary economist and, you know this book is really about the multiplicity of money. I look at money through different perspectives, evolutionary biology to theology. So the other books that i looked at were the new testament, the quran, the religious bookings. What do the religious books say about money . I started with an economist and i ended up with the spiritual masters. What does jesus say about money . You know, i was in, i was in calcutta india and my job takes me around the world. I was in calcutta india, and i went to mother teresas home for the dying and destitute. This is where people go really to die. Its really, really a sad and almost a moving place. And i walked in. There was many lepers surrounding me. This man was sort of quivering on the floor, and seated among the lepers was a teenager, maybe 16 17 years old who looked like a young mick jagger, had a mop top, and his presence was very jarring to me such vibrance, right . I went up to him, and i said why are you here . Why are you here serving lepers . When i was 16 or 17 i was not volunteering in calcutta india. I was not serving those with is little. And he said im here because of what the gospel teaches. What does the gospel teach . He said even though everyone here is poor theyre rich in spirit. Right . Theyre rich in spirit. And when you go pack and look at the gospel go back and look at the gospel 80 of what jesus says in the book of matthew, eight of the ten parables are about money and wealth. And it says there in the new testament, you know, the sermon on the mount, jesus is pretty clear. He says lay up treasures in heaven but not on earth. And then he goes on to Say Something very curious that theologians have been trying to work out for generations. He says essentially the body has an eye and if you darken it, you shall not see. And then he goes on to talk about money again. What is he talking about . Theologians have been they say that jesus is talking about greed. Because grueled is something you dont greed is something you dont see in yourself. You see it in other people. So in researching this book, i looked at the works of timothy keller, a great pastor in new york. He said, kabir, ive been hearing con physicianals for 25 years confessionals for 25 years, but no one has ever come up to me and said, father, please forgive me, i am too greedy. Why is that . Because greed is something we see in other people, again not in ourselves. And what jesus says is, you know, less is more. Were all driven by an economic logic, more is better, more resources, i want a bigger car, bigger house, better job. But across all the faiths i can go into them if you like but across all the faiths theres a more spiritual logic which is less is more. Its important to detach from money. And how we use money, according to the different faiths, can determine the fate of our soul. Whatever religion you subscribe to every major religion has very strict rules about what to do and how to spend money. You worried america has become too greedy, people of america . Are we money obsessed here . I mean, i think maybe to a certain point. But im a bug believer that theres im a big believer that theres often a misreading that money is the root of all evil. So the author of the introduction of this book, he used must be as a way to used money as a way to lift people out of poverty. The spread of capitalism has brought millions of people out of poverty into economic opportunity. In india is and china in india and china. But america since the 1970s, weve had stagnation and higher inequality. To your point are americans more are we greedier, money obsessed, i think our comparison has come off. What i mean by that is 30 years ago you would compare yourself to people in your neighborhood right . So the People Living next to you, your neighbor he or she may be a little bit more wealthy than you because youre living in the same neighborhood, but now you go on social media, on the internet, facebook, you start comparing yourself to people who are more wealthy than you. Almost 50 of people who use social media facebook report feelings of envy or jelloous city right . Jealousy. So theres definitely in our society when you start comparing yourself to people who have more it starts to make you feel comfortable or insecure. So its important to compare yourself to people who have less. Have you thought about american currency . I do president ial history, weve got all the faces of president s on the bills. Whats been the role of money in the making of america . You know as i travel around the world, i would spend a day or two or an hour extra meeting with coin collectors, because i find it so fascinating, learning about the history of a society through the money. Ive p spent time with harvey stack whos 85 years old whos one of the oldest coin collectors. His familys been in the coin collecting business for generations. You probably can comment on this. I asked him i said which coin i mean, many many coins have been made in america which coins best represent america. And he said the 1933 double eagle. The 1933 double eagle. What is that . Teddy roosevelt. I learned this from you. Teddy roosevelt when he came into power and you can correct me if im wrong he was really into brandishing america. It was after the civil war, he wanted america to be proud of itself. And he thought that american coinage, in his words, were atrocious. Atrocious hideousness. Because the coin faces had grecian heads or roman heads. They didnt look like american figures, right . He wanted american coinage to represent america. So he hired a friend of his. He sort of bypassed the u. S. Mint which created his own problems. He went straight to a friend of his who was a sculpt for a metalist, and he said i want you to make new coins for america. And this took a long time to make but essentially, he created whats called a double eagle. He improved the double eagle. And if you look at this coin it has victoria kind of striding majestically an eagle in a sunrise. And the coins were made, its an eight tint, eight strikes to make these coins and it had a really nice contrast. When you put your hands over the coin, you can feel the shape of it. But the bankers didnt like it because you couldnt stack the coins. The bankers wanted to be able to roll these coins easily. So only a few of these coins were made, and they sort of went out of circulation. And this coin the 1933 double eagle, comes up for auction in 2002 and went for 75 over 7 million in auction. Its the most lucrative or most expensive coin ever gone in auction. The 1933 double eagle is one to to have the most beautiful coins in american history. And t. R. Offered to put the buffalo on the buffalo nickel. Thats right. Now i remember when you were traveling all over the world, and suddenly you told me you were going to the georgia lap goes for a book on money and i didnt get it at the time. Now that ive read coined, i do. Tell us what brought you to the island for a earning project like this. So money is an instrument of exchange. Okay. So thats the traditional definition, but youve got to ask the question where does, change begin. Of its really a biological question because all human organisms exchange. I started this book look at the biological reason for why we exchange. I went down to the galapagos, and i spent time with a couple marine biologists. Why did i do that . Well, they toured me across the different ecosystems. We went snorkeling underwater and whats the first thing that i see . Actually one of first pictures in this book its the picture of a sea turtle, right . And the sea turtle has its fin exposed, and the fish are coming and feeding on the sea turtle and theyre cleaning the sea turtle. Theyre ingesting nutrients and the sea alternatings turtlings getting cleaned. Its an example of symbiosis. He looks through different can ecosystems. All organisms are trying to exchange with each other in order to survive. Even humans. Like theres intestinal bacteria digesting our food. Right now you may not think about it, but were in an exchange with this plant. Its a carbon cycle going on. Why is this important . Because the energy of nature sorry, the currency of nature is energy right . Energy transfer. And whats the first thing that humans start to exchange . Energy food, right . So its fad sharing. Food sharing. And thats the first thing, the first currency of this world, 9000 b. C. , jericho israel, it was salt. You know, salt was one of the first currencies. It was fur, it was meat. And so Energy Becomes this currency, and what makes humans different is we start realizing the brain expands, the prefrontal cortex exlands. We start to expands. We start to realize hmm maybe we can create tools that help us survive. One of these tools is called money, right . So theres an evolutionary aspect. You may not think, well, its kind of crazy he went to the galapagos for this, but when you start to think about it, you know Charles Darwin tried to come up with a genetic explanation. He didnt call it that but when you hook at it, he takes identical twins and separate them. Studies show they invest in a similar manner. Theyve taken people and theyve separated them, theyve swabbed their cheeks and they asked them to make investment decisions. Theres this one gene if you have one variance of it, youre more likely to be risk averse, have fewer credit lines and have a higher fico score. If you have the other variant of it, its just the opposite. So the genetics in this one study, your genes influence about 9 3w points 93 points of your credit score, which is a lot. It goes to show you theres a genetic basis or biological reason to why we exchange and theres genetic influences to our financial decision making. Its not the only thing. Certainly, you can take classes and you can try and improve your genes, but it is very important to realize that genes influence our financial decision making. Touch on your relationship with the country of india and what do you think the future of financial relations, United States and india whats the state of that bilateral relationship right to now . My heritage is, my parents are from india, and ive been there many times. And you see for the longest time there was a frost between america and india. There was of no dialogue really after during the cold war because india was a nonaligned country, so america built a relationship with pakistan. And so 1991 you see in 1991 you see a liberalization in india, and theres more bilateral trade coming in. And india has been really an incredible Success Story even with the new president. Im going to talk your question a little bit take your question a little bit differently in that in understood ya people are concerned indias becoming too centered on money. And many researching my book i looked at the relationship of hinduism and money and i found this really fascinating. In induism theres four goals to life. One of the goals is called artha. What does that mean . It means youre supposed to go out and make money. Its your duty to make money. Its your obligation to make money, right . Because you have to take care of your family, you have to take care of your kids. And its only pursuing money that you will be awakened the last goal of hinduism which is liberation the detachment of money. In other words, you have to pursue artha in order to realize theres Something Else in life, liberation. And so i think a conversation in india right now like indias growing, its growing really fast how do we make sure we dont become totally westernized . And theres a fear of that happening. A lot of people are saying come back to the hindu scriptures and make sure that were human money, but we also realize were not the end all and be all. Good. Tell me about wall street and if you had a imagine you can wand and you could reform aspects of wall street where do you find the biggest problems . On wall street . I think if you want to have reform on wall street, look sheila bair who was the head of the fdic she was one of the first persons who said there was going to be a problem with what was happening on wall street on the housing crisis. Back in 2006, 2007 she said we needed to have higher capital standards. So when you go to a bank they need to have more capital, more buffer right . And it seems like logic, very logical, but in 2007 people were talking about bringing that down. And so, you know doddfrank is coming, and theres a lot more rules on financial regulation. Ultimately, at the end of the day you simply need more capital buffer. And what does that mean . When a bank puts more capital reserves, it means that that when you loan out money not as profitable for a bank, because the banks using some of its own money. So its with wall street its tough right now. Theres a public knowledge. Wall street journal had a report out saying compensation is down, a lot of these banks are getting hit by fines. So its theres been an exodus of talent. And so its not exactly this free wheeling culture of the 980s. Michael lewis writes about it, 990s. Theres really been a cultural shift on wall street thats been happening. If you want further reform, its going to have to be around capital standards. Now you beyond tell me a little bit, connect for us jazz and what youve learned as a great, hes an amazing jazz musician. I personally encountered kabir when he played with wynton mar sal plus hugely can mar sal plus hugely talented. Did it help you in any way or just a little bit. I think, i mean, i write in the book about sort of the no boxes, right . Duke elington used to say this thing, no boxes. What does that mean . Look across the disciplines. So theres a lot of books on money, Historical Books on money. You know, in 4000 b. C. , this happened. But i try to approach money from different aping ts. Angles. And i would just go down the rabbit hole on each one of them. And one of the rabbit holes i got dropped this was this idea of debt. What does that mean . So those of you who have taken economics courses theres economics 101 starts like this, you know that there was bartering, and then it led to to moneyment weve all heard this. What would happen if you didnt have something that the other person wanted . Well, they created money. Aristotle talks about this. The anthropologists go back, and they say, well, wait a second. A great anthropologist says theres never been a society in the history of the world thats ever existed that relies on barter exclusively. Its really debt. Debt is the main is the main currency of the world. And this is a really important point because no matter where i go in the world right . People think of money just as we think of like a mile is a measurement of distance, money is a measurement of debt, right . So debt gets invented in around 4000 5000 b. C. Coins arent invented until 7000 b. C. Theres thousands of years of history of debt obligations, and then money gets invented. So i was in japan recently, and this gets back to your jazz question. Its a great place to listen to jazzment i was in japan in tokyo, and i bought some fruit for a friend, some grapes. These grapes were the most expensive fruit ive ever bought. It was 40 more one strand of grapes right . They were delicious. The texture was, like, silky. And i gave them to a friend of mine, and he said, kabir, i cannot accept this fruit from you. I said well why not . He said, because youre going to be leaving, youll be going back to america in two days, ill never be able to repay you. I said is okay well no, you can have them. And i started looking into it. And in japanese the word air gato, thank you, loosely translates to this difficult thing. Another word for thank you means, like, im sorry, i cannot accept this, right . When you go to a Japanese Department store they will not let you tie your own presents, wrap your own presents, because the if you do a poor job, it reflects poorly on the Department Store right . When you go to a japanese wedding, you have to tie that present firmly with a rub bonn because if you go to a wedding and you bring a present with you and the ribbons too loose then you may imply that the marriage may not last, right . Even on valentines day women buy chocolate for men they feel obligated to. Theres one study that 80 of women buy chocolate to men who have helped them in their careers. Obligation chocolate, right . [laughter] and so, and then the men reciprocate with a gift of their own. So why do i bring this up . Because wherever you go, there is a, this idea of obligation and tet can. When i give a gift to you im not just im tying you to an obligation. So even on wall street theres one wall street ceo, he keeps a list in his suit pocket and on one side of it it says people who owe me something and on the other side people who i owe, right . So this idea of debt is so central to the understanding of money. And it took, like a very [inaudible] way to come up with this to see how different cultures deal with the gift economy. Because its different wherever you go. What was im going to ask one more question and then well open it up here to the audience. I picked a couple of places you went in the book but tell us a story of one of the most unusual encounters you had in a different country with currency. Youve told us a few, but is there another one youd like to touch on . In order to learn about money, i went to the middle of no where. I also went to mongolia. Why . I went to officially the middle of no where. Its ought hours eight hours outside of the city. We went to the ancient ruins of the city of the the seat of the mongol empire. Why did i go there . Because the mongol empire was really one of the first certainly the biggest that used paper money, right . And so it was in the 3th century, 12th century a. D. The mongols realized in order to get people to come to their kingdom, they had to make it convenient and make the money easy. So instead of using copies, they started to print paper. And they backed their paper with silver and silk, and then the money was circulating. And then in 1260 coup lay khan, one of the descendants of the mongols, he conquers the chinese. He says theres a problem now. He added millions and millions of people to his kingdom, but there was not enough money. So what did he do . He cuts that link between metal and money. He starts saying listen, you have to accept this money this paper money. And if you dont accept this paper money, youll be subject to death. Right . If you counterfeit this money youll be subject to death. Marco polo writes in his adventures travels of marco polo, the great khan makes money out of the barks of trees. So you start to see that the mongol empire was stretched from burma to hungary and it was ruled not just by swords and horses and bow and arrows but by paper. And so, you know, when you go to mongolia theres almost nothing there. So what happened . Ultimately, there was inflation, runaway spending the plague happened the mongol empire crumbles. But it goes to show you that a nomadic people can rule other people using paper using paper money, and if you rely too heavily on paper money, you can print too much of it and ultimately, it can spell difficulty for your regime or your country. And that gives us a lot ofless szobs today. Lessoned the. Weve printed and printed and added more money to the money supply here in america. There hasnt been a lot of inflation as a result. But remind you of the vietnam war in the 60s, that may have led to the great inflation t of the 70s. So it takes a while to materialize. So i went to mongolia to learn about the history of paper money. Very good. We have a microphone here if anybody would like to ask kabir a question. You can see how wide ranging his scope is, how ambitious book is and that he was able to pull it off. And its exceedingly well written, you know anecdote after anecdote on just trying to understand money which is something we all have in our pockets right now or we all think about a lot. We never really think about origins of it, it just sort of is. So its sort of onestop shopping, this book. Kabir tells you all about it in a very enjoyable way. All of reviews are talking about just how readable the book truly is. Do we have anybody that would like to ask him a question . Yes, sir. Yeah. Do you because we are overprinting do you see ruin for the American Economy in the future . Not imminently. I dont see it happening anytime soon, but it is really a concern because its rarely a free lunch, right . Having looked at 5,000 years of monetary history theres just example after example of people trying to inject more money to stimulate i mean its not a bad theory. You want to give people money to make them feel richer so they spend their way sort of out of recession. But the problem is like the mongols or, you know 18th century france, the problem is when things get better, how do you do countercyclical policy . How do you shrink the monetary supply . How do you create more value to the dollar . And so i think that look, Milton Friedman says that the dollar has, the dollar has its value because people believe in it. Ultimately, its a confidence game. So as long as people believe in the u. S. Government, as long as people look, in 2008, you know people were questioning the u. S. Government the fed, the banks. But people were still hoarding dollar cans. People were hoarding 100 bills. One side the system was falling apart, but the other side was hoarding the dollar. Why was that . Because theres no other place to invest. You dont want to be invested in russia, india or china. Ultimately its the great place to do business. Ive traveled the world, theres the least amount of friction. Im very bull you should on america. I would just bullish on america. I just hope we yet our Monetary Policy in check. I think this summer when we see raising the rates thats an example of the fed realizing we cant keep rates too low for too long. Great answer. Anyone else have a question for kabir . Yes, sir. Grab the mic. In the writing of this book, has it changed your personal relationship with money . [laughter] good question. A little bit, yeah. I mean ive since left my job, right . And so on wall street theres sort of this its in the dna that you have to make as much of it as you can while you can. And it is important to, in reflecting on money, i talked a little bit about artha and liberation. The accumulation of wealth can be over your lifetime. When youre young, you should be making money in hinduism, right . But when you get older and you leave the world, you should renounce it. When you wake up in the morning, you go to work make money. In the evening its important to unplug and not be so much about driven by the paycheck. So ultimately i decided to i wanted to leave and do Something Else and spread this message of sort of financial literacy. Americans have a tough time with financial literacy. A lot of us spend too much money, we have a negative savings rate. Thats gotten better. So ive been talking this message across the different places to help see if i can do even a small thing and help people with reflecting on their relationship with money. And do you have one tip . I know you have many but what would be just one general tip for people that are concerned about their own personal bank account . Theyre wanting to make money. Yeah. Do you have a tip of how to make money in america . Well, i mean probably easier to talk about the expense side right . You shrink your expenses, its easier to do. Yeah. I think one interesting study on the use of credit cards. When you use your credit card theres less activation in the part of the brain that deals with anxiety. So if you spend more cash, youll be more cognizant about the money leaving your banking account. So everyone would be wiser to spend more money in cash. I know its more inconvenient, but at least you can visualize your expenses. In terms of making money, i may offend some people in the audience here, but i really believe its important to put money in index funds, right . In your savings account, in your 401 k . A lot of what does that mean . It means instead of having a mutual fund manager actively managing your portfolio, the one thing you can control is the cost of your funds. So low cost index funds, your 401 k should be in there because the studies have shown that, you know, only what over 20 years only 5 of managers beat the market consistently. So why do you keep on paying people to underperform . So its important to, if you can, put a bucket of your money in your 401 k into retirement accounts that are geared to index funds. Good, great. Yes, sir. You mentioned the impact on religion before, and i was wondering if you could talk about how religion impacted money over time specifically i guess as an example the ban on collecting interest for so long in the by the church. Yeah. Well, interesting, you know, i think some solars have talked scholars have talked about religion was, came about payoff money. Why is that . Because jesus was preaching to poor people right . And mohamed was even preaching to poor people. And if you look at where coinage is invented again, david brayburn anthropologist, writes about this. Some people say in greece. Then you have a religious leader weeing that russ, come weeing that russ comes around. Coins also in india, some people say that maybe the creation of money led to the, a response to it which is organized religion right . The followers cape from the poor people the poor people who were disenfranchised, right . So yeah, youre right. Not just in christianity but in judaism, in the quran it talks about prohibitions against interest right . And theres a long history to it, but ultimately enter comes the word interest comes from a sumerian word it translates to goat or lamb. And so loans are given out in livestock, essentially and youd repay based to on the offspring of that livestock, right . So a lot of the laws also in the scriptures come from ancient agrarian law right . So in judaism you wouldnt plow the edges of the field because youd want to save some for the poor people, right . A tithe. So i write about it more extensively in the book but thats a little history of scripture. Very good. Anyone else with a question . I wanted, while somebodys talking about it, i wanted to ask you about this Extraordinary Group of blurbs you got for the book. How did you get paul volcker to so glowingly embrace this book . It was certainly unexpected. He has an office actually, not across the street or two with blocks away from where i worked. I sent him a letter. Not asking for a blub, just because id done some research, and i had some questions about his time at the fed. He invited me into his office and it was a tough meeting, you know . [laughter] he had a lot of questions about my history the history id worked on, and i said, well, i just want you to read it. And i was so surprised maybe three months later, nothing had happened. I got an email from his assistant with an endorsement. But he appreciated i think, just the very scope of it because it wasnt its not just a traditional history book. He was also fascinated in the future of money. We had a Big Conversation about the future of money and what that holds. And theres a chapter on the future, we can talk about that yeah. Did you think some people say therell come a point because of the Online Services that you wont need coinage and cash. Do you foresee that being possible . Could be. I mean look, 85 of transactions in the world are still based on cash which is surprising to hear right . So you travel to the emerging world like in india its very tough to swipe a credit card. Not just in the e emergencying world, but in the emerging world, but in the developed world as well. Look at germany. Germany has over 80 Million People but only 1015 million credit cards. Why is that in german the word for debt means guilt, right . So theres cultural reasons why people dont want the use credit cards. In china theres not as much of a social safety net. So studies have shown that the territory toes that have higher marriage rates are the people who have the territories where people have more in savings, thats where the marriage rates are higher, because youre a better companion or spouse if you have more money in the bank. And so theres a dearth of credit cards in the world but theres an abundance of mobile phones. And so the economist even writes that its easier to pay for a taxi right in nairobi than in new york because you take out your cell phone, and you instantly pay for a taxi ride. This was i think, preuber but even still it goes to show you that this is really the fundamental change thats happening across the world. People are using their mobile phones for payment quite devices. Payment devices. If you look at ancient greece when coins or were invented people could go to the agore rah, sometimes they would put the coins in their mouth, it was called their movable fortune. Put their coins in their mouth come to the marketplace and they didnt have to rely on a broker or a middleman or someone who was literate, they could just buy products. Look at the emerging world. If you travel through bangladesh india, china, people take out their mobile phone, and they can make a payment and not have to go to the bank with or a middleman. In the future the mobile phone is really going to be the payment device going forward. So i write about this extensively, and theres a lot of technologies here in america that are trying to capitalize on it. But that really is the future of money, the mobile phone. And you have also Sir Richard Branson of the virgin group. Whats his connection . How did he get his hands on this manuscript . Again, just a letter. And it is, basically, just i had a friend who hed invested in the company, and i sent a letter, and he forwarded it along, and it was a really really again these things are not, theyre not lockups right . Its almost like a message in a bottle and hopefully they respond. [laughter] i think people in general have been impressed by the journey you took the odyssey you took. Nobodys really done that in your generation, to travel around the world and kind of report back to us all on what youve seen, and its so much to be