they feel obligated to. there's a study that 80% of women buy chocolate to help them in their careers. they call it obligation chocolate. the men reciprocate with the gift of their own. why do i bring this up? 's wherever you go there is this idea of obligation and debt debt. when i get the gift to you i'm not -- i'm telling you it's an obligation so even on wall street there is one wall street ceo that keeps a list in his suit pocket and on one side of it is says people who owe me something and on the other side people who i owe so this idea of debt is so central to understanding money and it took away to come up with this to see how cultures deal with the gift economy because it's different wherever you go. >> i'm going to ask one more question and we will open it up here to the audience but i picked a couple of places. tell us a story of one of the most unusual encounters you have had in a different country with currency. you told told us a few but is there another one you like to touch on? >> in order to learn about money the galapagos is one of those but i also went to mongolia. why did i go to mongolia? i went to hard-core mongolia was which is officially in the middle of nowhere. i was with the driver and we went out and we went to the ancient ruins of the mongolian empire. why did i go there? the mongol empire was one of the first, certainly the biggest that use paper money and so 12 century a.d. the mongols realized in order to get people to come to their kingdom they had to make a convenient and make the money easy so instead of using coins they started to print paper. they back their paper was sober and silk and then the money was was -- and in 1260 kubla con conquers the chinese. he says there's a problem now. he added millions of people to his kingdom but there was not enough money. he cuts that link between metal and money. he starts saying listen you have to accept this money, this paper money and if you don't accept this paper money you will be subject to death. if you counterfeit this money you will be subject to death. marco polo writes in his adventures of travels of marco polo he writes the great con makes money out of the barks of trees so you start to see the mongol empire which stretched from bird to all the way to hungary was spread with rule not just by swords and horses and bow and arrows but by paper. and so when you go to car core mongolia there's almost nothing there. ultimately there was inflation and runaway spending. the play cap and in the mongol empire crumbled but it goes to show you a nomadic people can rule people using paper money and if you rely too heavily on paper money you can print too much of it and ultimately deacons fell difficult the berber shame our country. that gives us a lot of lessons today. here in america we have a paper money supply and get printed and added more money to the money supply. there hasn't been a lot of inflation as a result but mind you the vietnam war in the 60s that may have led to the great inflation of the 70s so it takes a while for these translation structures to materialize. once mongolia to learn about the history 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 this book is and he was able to pull it off exceedingly well-written. anecdote after anecdote and trying to understand money which is something we all have in our pockets right now or that we all think about a lot but we never think about the origins of the. it just sorted it so it's one-stop shopping in this book and kabir tells you about it in a very enjoyable way. all the reviews talk about how readable the book truly is. do we have anybody that would like to ask a question? >> because we are overprinting the you see a run on the american economy in the future? >> not eminently i don't see it happening anytime soon but it really is a concern because it's rarely a free lunch. having looked at 5 dozen years of monetary history there's this example after example of people trying to inject more money to stimulate -- goa i mean it's not a bad theory. he wants to give people money to make them feel richer so they spend their way out of a recession but the problem is the mongols were the 18th century france the problem is when things get better how do you do counter-cyclical policy? how do you shrink the monetary supply and how do you create more value to the dollar? i think outlook, milton friedman says the dollar has its value because people believe in it. ultimately it's a confidence game so as long as people believe in the u.s. government government -- look in 2008 people were questioning the u.s. government and the fed but people were still hoarding dollars. people were hoarding 100-dollar bills so one system was falling apart and on the other side they are hardening -- hoarding the dollar. there is no other place to invest. you don't want to invest in russia or india. the u.s. is a great place to do business. i have traveled the world and it's the least amount of friction. i'm very bullish on american and i hope that would keep her monetary policy and check. the summer raising of rates that's the example of the fed realizing you can't keep rates too low for too long. >> a great answer. anyone else have a question for kabir? yes sir back, grab the mic. >> in the writing of this book has it changed her personal relationship with money? >> good question. >> a little bit. it is since left my job so on wall street there is it's in the dna that you have to make as much of it as you can while you can. it's important in reflecting on money i talk a little bit about it. the acute relation of wealth can be over your lifetime like when you were young you should be making money but when you get older and you leave the world you should renounce it. they could also correspond to your day. when you wake up in the morning you go to work and make money but in the evening it's important to unplug and not be so much urban by the paycheck so ultimately i decided i wanted to leave and do something else and spread this message of financial literacy. americans have a tough time. we have a tough time of financial literacy. we spend too much money and we have a negative savings rate. so i've been taking this message across to different places to help see if i can do even a small thing to help people reflect on their relationships with money. >> i know you have many but what would be one general tip for people that are concerned about their own personal bank account because they are wanting to make money. do you have a tip on how to make money in america? >> well it's probably easier to talk about the expense side. you can shrink your expenses. it's easier to do. one study is credit cards. when you use your credit card there's less activation in the part of big brain that deals with anxiety so if you just spend use mark tiexiera you will be more cognizant about the money leaving your checking account or your banking account. so we would all be wiser to spend more money in cash. i cash. i know it's more inconvenience but it's easy to visualize your expenses. in terms of making money i may offend some people in the audience but i really believe it's important to put money into index funds into your savings account and 401(k). what does that mean? it means instead of having a mutual fund manager manager portfolio the one thing you can control is the cost of your funds the low-cost index funds your aura 1k should be in there because studies have shown over 20 years only 5% and managers -- consistently so why do you pay people to underperform? it's important if you can to put part of your 401(k) into retirement accounts that are geared to index funds. >> good, great. yes sir. >> the impact on religion before and i was wondering if you talk about how religion impacted money specifically i guess as an example the ban on collecting interest by the church. >> it's interesting. some scholars have talked about religion came about because of money. why is that? jesus was preaching to poor people and mohammed was preaching to poor people. if you look at where coinages invented david graber the anthropologist writes coinage was invented some people say in greece and then you have a religious leader. coins are also around the same time in india. in china confucius say so some people say that maybe the creation of money led to a response which is organized religion. the leaders and followers came from the poor people and people were disenfranchised. you are right not just in christianity but judaism and the corona talks about prohibitions against interest. there's a long history to it but ultimately interest the word interest comes from the word mosque in samaria and. it translates to goad or lamb and so loans were given out in livestock essentially and he would prepay based on the offspring of that livestock. a lot of good has come from agrarian law. like in judaism you wouldn't plow the edges of the fields because she didn't want -- you wanted to save some for the people. i write about it more extensively in the book but that's a history and scripture. >> anyone else with the question? while somebody is thinking about it i wanted to ask you about this extraordinary group of words that you got for the book. how did you get paul volcker so glowingly embrace this book? >> it was really unexpected. he has an office actually across the street are two blocks away from where i worked. i sent them a letter and just because i had done some history and research and i had questions about his time at the fed so he invited me into his office. it was a tough meeting. he had a lot of questions about the history i had worked on and i said i just want you to read it and i was so surprised three months later i thought nothing it happened with an endorsement. he appreciated i think the very scope of it. it's not just the traditional history but he's also interested in the future of money and what that holds. and there's a chapter on the future. >> some people say they will, point because of the on line services that you won't need coinage and cash. do you foresee that being possible? >> that could be. 85% of transactions in the world are still -- which is surprising to hear. in india it's tough to find a credit card reader to swipe a credit card. it's true in the developed world as well. look at germany. germany has over 80 million people but only 10 to 15 million credit cards. why is that? in german the word for debt means guilt. there are cultural reasons why of people i want to use credit cards. in china there is not as much as a social safety net so studies have shown the territories have higher marriage rates the territories are the people who have more in savings their marriage rates are higher because you are better companion or a spouse and you have more money in the bank. there is a dearth of credit cards in the world but there's an abundance of global funds. the economist even writes that it's easier to pay for it taxi ride in nairobi than then in new york city take your cell phone and you can send an sms and you instantly pay for a taxi ride. this was pre-uber but even still he goes to show you that this is the fundamental change happening across the world. you can use global funds for payment devices. you look at ancient greece when coins were minted that was revolutionary because poor people to go to the marketplace. sometimes they would put coins in their mouth. it's called the movable fortune. they had no place else to put it. they would come to the marketplace and they didn't have to rely on a broker or a middleman or someone who is literate. they could just buy products. you could travel to bangladesh or india or china. people take out their mobile phone and they can make a payment and not have to go to the bank. in the future the mobile phone is going to be the payment device going forward. i write about this extensively and there's a lot of technology. here in america they are trying to capitalize on it but that's the future money, the mobile phone. >> you also have search or branson. what's his connection and how did he get his name on this manuscript? >> again, just a letter and it was basically i had a friend who invested in a company and i sent a letter and he forwarded along. and it was really a blessing. these are not lockups. it's almost like a message in a bottle. >> people in general have been impressed by the journey you took, the honesty you took and nobody has really done that in your generation. you travel around the world in the report that to assault him what you have seen. and on behalf of the book people in austin and texas in general thanks for coming down here. it was a wonderful chatting with you and i hope you all get "coined." >> i also want to say that has been a great friend and a mentor. it's important that we remember the people who shape history and is also important to remember that people who help us remember history. you have a national treasure in austin here in doug brinkley. one day they should name a park for you. thank you so much. >> thank you all. goodnight. [applause] >> some more applause for doug brinkley. [applause]