sticks with me every time, money useful, even though money cause some problems. We just want to get the story right. This actually - as much as I've thought about money, I don't think it ever occurred to me that there wasn't just one single American $1 bill, $10 bill, $20 bill. There are more than 40 hundreds in circulation for every man, woman and child in America! So these merchants started letting people store their iron coins with them and then giving people a receipt, sort of like a coat check or something for the coins, right? Earlier in my career, I was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Jacob Goldstein Jacob Goldstein is an NPR correspondent and co-host of the Planet Money podcast. Jacob -- can you describe the differences of working at the WSJ and NPR? What is money? And, you know, it's useful. GOLDSTEIN: So, yeah, this is one of my favorite periods in the whole history of money. Well, you could be a really, really small, like, sort of clan-type self-sufficient society, right? Also -- where do you find time between work, life, family, etc to write a book!? And this economic flourishing that had happened, it just goes away. Iron was not worth a lot, so you had to use, like, a pound and a half of iron coins to buy a pound of salt, which is obviously terrible. Since I'm the Khan, if you don't believe me, I'll kill you. And, you know, this was an era when the value of the metal was basically what the value of the money was. 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And you can think of sort of maybe a spectrum. Sep. 30, 2020: A testy and chaotic first U.S. presidential debate, Apology for systemic racism in Nova Scotia’s justice system, André Picard on fresh COVID-19 restrictions, Real-life Canadian superheroes fighting crime and doing good deeds. And so, you know, money and trade are all kind of booming in China. So it used to be the case that banks printed their own bank notes. I feel like that ship has sailed for most on Earth, right? Thank you so much for doing this, such a big fan of you and Planet Money!! I took a 10-month unpaid book leave from NPR to write the book. Sep. 29, 2020: Quebec on COVID-19 red alert, Future of performing arts in Canada, Former FBI agent Peter Strzok on Russia, the election and Trump’s finances. It’s called Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, and it comes out today. Hi Jacob! What matters is the journalism, not the tax structure of the company. I've been thinking about this since I read your book, incessantly - money might be the one thing that we all still believe in. KING: You know, we tend to look often at money as a moral thing - wanting too much, having too much is bad. He is the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. In my experience of working at a number of places (NPR, WSJ, etc.) At least that’s how Jacob Goldstein, host of NPR’s Planet Money, explains it in his recently-released book, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. But some stoner questions are good questions! There are more hundreds than ones! That’s according to Jacob Goldstein, co-host of NPR’s Planet Money and author of “Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.” In America, people first used coins, then went to paper money because coins were so heavy to carry. And people are like, no way. Jacob Goldstein, who co-hosts NPR's Planet Money, has spent years fixated on that question. GOLDSTEIN: Let's let everybody who wants to be a bank be a bank. They've done all of this. There's very little moralizing in your book, which I appreciate. I don't really like navigating big organizations, so finding small teams has been great for me. We could have a cashless world where we still have the Federal Reserve and private banks operating basically the way they do now. KING: Jacob Goldstein, author of the book "Money: The True Story Of A Made-Up Thing." Jacob Goldstein is an NPR correspondent and co-host of the Planet Money podcast. JACOB GOLDSTEIN, BYLINE: What happened in China is really amazing. Thank you again and looking forward to your book! Got back to using... KING: This is my favorite part of the book - literally, my favorite part of the book. I also think non-profit companies can do bad journalism. In his new book, "Money: The True Story Of A Made-Up Thing," he writes that money is a shared fiction. And there is actually this idea of, like, look - we believe in sort of free enterprise and free trade in wheat; let's have free enterprise and free trade in money. Jacob Goldstein, the co-host of NPR's Planet Money, charts the evolution of money from coins to paper to virtual currencies in his new book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. Money is the root of many things, good and evil. I liked this question so much I wrote a book about it. GOLDSTEIN: Shared fiction. We all agree to believe that a paper $20 bill or the numbers in my savings account are worth something. You could build a big, complicated society without money if the government was basically taking everything everybody made and deciding exactly who would get what and nobody got to choose what they were going to get. that's the whole point! I found the conclusion to do a great job and saved the overall review of this book. GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, let's go back. It comes … And more generally, do you think operating as a for-profit company contorts the mission of radio journalism? The other thing, slightly less obvious but interesting, is should you, if you're a merchant, accept the bank note at full face value, or should you say, I'll accept your dollar, but I'll only give you 90 cents' worth of stuff for it, I'll discount the value of it? I think for-profit companies can do good journalism. It's 1840, and you're a merchant in Ohio or something, right? There are long periods in the history of money where not much happens, and Goldstein skips those parts. Given the subject of that episode and the content on WSB being the primal state of retail investing personified, it almost seems left out. If cash does eventually go away, that wouldn't fundamentally change the way we do money. Did he offer early positions in Gimlet to you or other Planet Money colleagues? Jacob talks with Marty about the history of this “useful fiction” and how it … Where is all this money? Jacob Goldstein Co-host of NPR's Planet Money. It seems that online/e-transactions and government seek to kill both. But one of the lessons in China is that is not a one-way street, right? You could go to the other end of the spectrum. Jacob Goldstein, who co-hosts NPR's Planet Money, has spent years fixated on that question. It's cash! I co-host NPR's Planet Money. Like, money is this social thing, right? What paper money was was a note issued by a bank, a receipt, a claim on gold or silver. The Chinese finally, after a bunch of inflations, actually give up on paper money. Ira Glass called it “the most stoner question” he had ever posed on the show. GOLDSTEIN: Oh, it was so fun, Noel. In 2011, my colleagues and I went on the radio show This American Life to ask a question: What is money? I just wrote a book called Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. But how could you not have money? 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg, Published September 8, 2020 at 5:02 AM EDT, Charlotte Officials Again Reject Affordable Housing Funds For Brookhill, Coronavirus World Map: Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak. But, ultimately, I guess what I'm asking you is - is money a good thing? And yet! And we know this in part from Marco Polo, from other travelers. Do you regret not getting into Gimlet at the ground floor? Al Sharpton on Donald Trump and a reckoning on race, Could a ‘Covatical’ curb rising COVID-19 cases?, Whisky world faces its #MeToo moment, Oct. 1, 2020: Death of Indigenous woman Joyce Echaquan in Quebec hospital, Road to November: Illinois, manufacturing and bringing back jobs, David Neiwert on Trump saying ‘Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,’ Dispute between doctors and Alberta provincial government. That’s according to Jacob Goldstein, co-host of NPR’s Planet Money and author of “ Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.” In America, people first used coins, then went to paper money because coins were so heavy to carry. At both the WSJ and NPR, I managed to find a small team within a larger organization -- at the WSJ, I wrote the health blog (remember blogs?). And, you know, eventually, what happens sometimes when you can make money out of paper is you make too much paper money. In his new book, "Money: The True Story Of A Made-Up Thing," he writes that money … In his new book, "Money: The True Story Of A Made-Up Thing," he writes that money is a shared fiction. So this period in the U.S. - what happened was it was called free banking. In a cashless world, the government would need to provide debit cards or bank accounts for people who don't have a bank account. Any predictions on the death of cash?