PROSPER VALLEY

How Money Learns to Run

Alfredo Pacheco

Conception, creation and original ideas by Alfredo Pacheco.

Twelve stories about why money, when it sits still, is no good to anybody.

50 pages

Before we start (this part is for the grown-up reading along)

Here I tell you the same story as in USA: It Is Now, but for someone who is eight or nine years old. I didn't make it easier by taking out ideas, only hard words.

Every chapter ends with two things: What we learned today, three lines to go over again, and Try this at home, which is a game. The games matter as much as the stories.

One last thing. In chapter twelve, Sammy gets a number wrong and says so out loud in front of the whole valley. That chapter is the most important one in the book, and it is not about money.

Who lives in Prosper Valley

Lia is nine, with a lemonade stand on the corner and all the questions.

Sammy the Beaver has a small sawmill and three helpers. When things go well for him, half a dozen families do well too.

Don Giga the Brontosaurus is enormous, and he is not bad. He works hard and he does good work. His only problem is his belly: whatever goes in there stays in there.

Barnaby the Bear lost his job, and every month the town leaves a basket at his door. He wants to work. Now you'll see why he can't.

Mayor Arthur is a raccoon in a hat. He isn't bad either: he is tired, and a tired man always picks the fastest way.

Nina is Tomas's oldest daughter. She went off to a very big and very expensive school, and her dad spent years paying for it.

Doctor Pelican is the only doctor in the valley. He cures people well. But if you get sick at night, there is nobody else.

Don Anselmo lives in a little blue booth at the entrance to the market. He says good morning to everybody, and every time somebody buys something he keeps a little piece of it.

Mrs. Uva runs the market and grows apple trees. Tomas the Fox fixes roofs. Mrs. Pluma teaches at the school.

And the river runs through the middle of town, which is where it all begins.

Chapter 1 — The river that stopped running

A river runs through Prosper Valley.

It isn't big. You can jump across it. But everybody in town drinks from that river: Sammy the Beaver fills his buckets, Mrs. Uva waters her apple trees, and Mayor Arthur waters the flowers in the square so they come out nice in the photographs.

Lia filled one bucket every morning to make lemonade. One Tuesday she went down to the river and found dry stones.

"The water is gone!" she shouted.

Sammy came running, looked at the dry riverbed, and said something strange.

"The water isn't gone, Lia. It stopped running."

What Sammy showed her

He walked her upstream. And there, sitting right in the middle of the dry river, was Don Giga, perfectly calm, with an enormous, very round belly.

"Good morning," said Don Giga, very politely, because Don Giga is very polite.

Lia looked at the dry riverbed. She looked at the belly. She looked at the riverbed again.

"Don Giga… did you drink the river?"

"I didn't drink anything," said Don Giga. "I'm keeping it. That's different. It's all here, safe and sound, not being wasted."

And it was true: all the water in the valley was inside him, kept, safe.

And the town, downstream, had none.

The idea in this chapter

There was the same water in the world as always. The town ran out of water because the water stopped running.

Money works exactly like that river.

When Lia sells a glass of lemonade, that coin doesn't sit still. Lia buys lemons from Mrs. Uva. Mrs. Uva pays the boy at the market. The boy buys bread. The baker calls Tomas about the roof. Tomas buys wood from Sammy. Sammy pays his helpers.

One coin. Seven happy people.

Now imagine that same coin lands in Don Giga's belly on the very first step. One happy person. Six waiting.

It is the same coin. The only thing that changed is how many times it moved.

That is why, when somebody says "there isn't enough money here," they are almost always wrong: money is almost never what's missing. Movement is what's missing.

And the question of the whole book is this one:

How many hands does this coin touch before it stops?

What we learned today

• Money is like river water: it's useful when it runs, not when it's stored.
• One single coin can make seven people happy if it goes from hand to hand.
• When it looks like money is missing, what's usually missing is movement.

Try this at home

Get one coin and sit in a circle with five people.

Each one tells the next what they are buying ("I'll buy your drawing") and passes the coin along. Count how many things got bought.

Now do it again, but the first person keeps it in their pocket. How many this time?

That's the whole book.

Chapter 2 — Don Giga is not the bad guy

Lia went home angry.

"Don Giga is selfish," she said, banging the empty bucket down.

Her grandmother was peeling potatoes. She didn't look up.

"You think so? And what does Don Giga do all day?"

Lia went quiet, because the truth was uncomfortable.

Don Giga works from sunrise. He is the only one who can carry a twenty-meter log, and he built the new bridge himself.

"He works a lot," Lia admitted.

"Then he isn't selfish," said her grandmother. "He's a brontosaurus with a very big belly. Which is not the same thing."

The problem is not the size

The problem is not that he is big. There are things only somebody big can do: a bridge, a hospital. Sammy couldn't build a bridge if you gave him a whole year.

The problem is his belly. Whatever goes in, stays.

Sammy earns money too. But he has three helpers who get paid on Friday, a roof that leaks and a daughter who wants shoes. Money comes in one door and goes out the other the same day.

When you pay Sammy, the whole town finds out within a week. When you pay Don Giga, the town never finds out at all.

What happened in the square

That Saturday there was a town meeting. The Mayor climbed onto the wooden crate with his hat on crooked.

"I say we forbid Don Giga to drink water!" someone shouted from the back.

Don Giga lowered his head. He didn't say anything. He is very polite.

Sammy raised a paw.

"That's silly. If Don Giga doesn't drink, he has no strength. And with no strength there's no bridge, no mill and no barn. We end up with no water and no bridge. We lose twice."

"So what do we do?" asked the Mayor.

And Sammy said the line Lia learned by heart:

"We don't take anything away from Don Giga. We fix the river so the water keeps going down after him."

Because if the river runs properly, Don Giga drinks and Sammy fills his buckets and Lia makes lemonade. Nobody has to lose so that somebody else can win.

And whose fault is it?

Nobody's. Don Giga has a belly because he was born with one. The Mayor signs with him because it's the easy thing. Nobody did anything bad, and still the river is dry.

When that happens, the problem isn't in the people. It's in the rules.

And rules, unlike people, can be changed.

What we learned today

• Being big is not bad. Don Giga does things nobody else can do.
• The problem isn't the size: it's that the money goes in and doesn't come out.
• When something goes wrong and nobody did anything wrong, the fault is in the rules. And rules get changed.

Try this at home

Think of three things in your town that only somebody very big can do. (Hint: look up, look at the ground, and think about when you get sick.)

Now three from somebody small: whoever cuts your hair, whoever fixes bicycles, whoever sells the bread.

A town with only big ones doesn't work. With only small ones, it doesn't either.

Chapter 3 — One big contract or a hundred small ones

A letter arrived for Mayor Arthur. The school needed fixing: the roof, the windows, the desks. And the door that had squeaked for three years.

The Mayor looked at the list. Then he looked at the clock. Then he thought about his armchair at home, which was very comfortable and very far away.

"Ugh," he said.

He had two choices.

Choice A. Tomas for the roof, Sammy for the desks, Mrs. Pluma for the paint. Three conversations. Three papers. Three payments.

Choice B. Call Don Giga and tell him: "do all of it."

One paper. One payment. A free afternoon.

The Mayor picked B. And this part matters: he didn't choose badly because he was bad. He chose badly because he was tired. That's different, and far more common.

The price of a desk

Don Giga did the job, and he did it well. But he doesn't know how to make desks, so he went to see Sammy.

"I need thirty desks."

Sammy made them in two weeks, sanded by hand. He charged three coins each.

Don Giga handed them to the Mayor and charged him fourteen coins each.

Lia did the sum on her fingers and her mouth fell open.

"He kept eleven coins per desk and he didn't cut a single board!"

"Yes," said Sammy, calmly. "And he didn't do anything against the law. He signed a paper and he organized the job. That's worth something."

"Is it worth eleven coins?"

Sammy thought about it.

"No. But the problem isn't how much it's worth. It's where those coins went."

Where each coin went

Let's follow Sammy's three coins. He pays his helper. The helper buys bread. The baker calls Tomas. The hardware man buys lemonade.

Now let's follow Don Giga's eleven coins.

They went into the belly.

The end.

Same job. The same thirty desks. And the whole town ended up with less.

Imagine the Mayor lets go of a hundred coins for the school.

Through Don Giga's door, by the end of the day fifteen are still going around. The other eighty-five are in the belly. Through Sammy's door, sixty-one are still going around.

What the town decided

At the meeting, Sammy proposed a rule:

If the people of the town can do it, it doesn't all get bundled into one contract.

The Mayor grumbled, because it meant more paperwork and fewer naps. But he signed it in the end.

Nobody forbade Don Giga anything. It's just that Sammy makes the desks. And the eleven coins stay in the valley.

What we learned today

• One giant contract is comfortable for whoever signs it and expensive for everybody else.
• Out of every hundred coins through a big door, fifteen keep running. Through a small one, sixty-one.
• Big money doesn't move slower: almost all of it switches off on the first step.

Try this at home

Gather a hundred beans. That's the school money.

Round 1 (Don Giga): put eighty-five aside in a box. The fifteen left over stay in the game.

Round 2 (Sammy): start again and put only thirty-nine aside. You have sixty-one left.

Look at them side by side. It's the same money.

Chapter 4 — Barnaby's basket

On the first Monday of every month, somebody leaves a basket at Barnaby's door: bread, honey, fruit and soap. They have done it ever since he lost his job at the old mill.

Barnaby always says thank you. And he always makes a strange face.

"Barnaby, why do you make that face if they're bringing you food?"

Barnaby took a while to answer.

"Because I want to work, Lia. And I can't."

The sum on the napkin

That week Sammy offered him a job hauling logs.

"I'll pay you four coins a week."

Barnaby was thrilled. He got out a pencil and a napkin. Lia sat down next to him.

"Let's see. I earn four coins."

"Four coins!" said Lia.

"Wait. The rule says that if I have a job, they stop leaving me the basket."

"Oh."

"And that basket costs five coins at the market."

The two of them sat there looking at the napkin.

Barnaby working six days a week: four coins. Barnaby in his cave, doing nothing: five coins.

"If I take the job… I get poorer?"

"Yes," said Lia, very quietly, because she didn't like that answer at all.

The step

Some neighbors said, when Barnaby wasn't around: "that bear doesn't want to work."

And they were wrong: Barnaby knew how to add.

Barnaby didn't have a wanting problem. He had a subtraction problem.

Sammy drew it in the dirt with a stick: stairs with an enormous hole between the first step and the second.

"Look, Lia. We built a staircase so people could climb. But we left a hole right at the bottom. Whoever tries to climb falls in. And then we get annoyed at them for not climbing."

"And how do you fix it?"

"You fill the hole. That's all there is to it."

The ramp

The new rule:

If Barnaby takes a job, he keeps his basket for five years.

Not forever. Five years. By then he has learned, he earns more, and he doesn't need it.

Back to the napkin: four coins from the job plus five from the basket. Nine coins.

Now the subtraction comes out right. And when the subtraction comes out right, you don't have to talk anybody into anything. Barnaby took the job that same day.

Some neighbors complained: "now he gets the wages and the basket!" And they were right for five years. But Barnaby spent those nine coins: honey, the roof of his cave, shoes for his niece. The basket, sitting still at a door, touched nobody.

And after five years it switched off for good: the town paid for five years so it could stop paying for the rest of his life.

What we learned today

• Sometimes the rule punishes whoever is trying to do the right thing. That's a fault in the rule.
• Barnaby didn't have a wanting problem. He had a subtraction problem.
• Helping somebody out costs money for a few years. Leaving them stuck costs money always.

Try this at home

Do Barnaby's napkin with a pencil and paper.

Write in one column if I work and in the other if I don't work. Put the numbers in and add them up.

Now invent another rule that also fixes the subtraction.

You might come up with a better one than Sammy's. Mine came to me with a pencil.

Chapter 5 — The medicine that cost a mountain

Tomas the Fox's son got a stomach ache on a Thursday night.

One of those aches that bend a little fox in half. Tomas picked him up and ran to the house of Doctor Pelican, the only doctor in the valley.

The doctor looked him over, gave him some green syrup, and two hours later the little fox was sleeping calmly.

The next morning the bill arrived.

Forty coins.

Tomas sat down on his front step with the bill in his hand and didn't move for quite a while. That was four months of fixing roofs.

Lia's question

Lia went to ask him why he had charged so much.

"Doctor, does the green syrup cost forty coins?"

"No," said the doctor, and he didn't get nervous, because he wasn't hiding anything. "The syrup costs me half a coin."

"Half?"

"Half."

"So why did you charge forty for it?"

The doctor put down his papers and looked at her.

"Lia, do you haggle over the price of your lemonade?"

"Sometimes. If somebody says it's expensive, I let them have it cheaper."

"And why?"

"Because if I don't, they go to the stand across the street."

"That is what I don't have," said the doctor. "I am the only doctor in the valley. Who was Tomas going to ask for a discount?"

Lia went quiet.

"That's why I charge forty. Not because Tomas didn't ask. Because he had nobody to ask."

And be careful: the doctor is not a villain. He is an ordinary man in a place where nothing pushes him to lower the price.

What sets a fair price isn't the kindness of the seller: it's that another corner exists.

What the town did

At the meeting, Sammy proposed something simple and hard:

Open the road.

It turned out there were three doctors in the next valley over with the very same medicine. But the road was full of rocks, and an old rule said that medicines from outside "hadn't been checked here."

Nobody remembered who wrote that rule. But it suited somebody very nicely.

The town cleared the rocks away and crossed out the rule. That was all.

The best part

And now the part Lia thought was magic, although it isn't.

Not one doctor from the other valley crossed the road.

The day people found out the road was open, the doctor brought the syrup down from forty coins to two.

"Why did he lower it, if nobody came?" asked Lia.

"Because now they can come," said Sammy. "That's enough."

What we learned today

• A price isn't fair because the seller is a nice person. It's fair when there's another corner.
• When there's only one, the price is whatever that person feels like.
• Opening the road works. And very often the price drops before anybody even arrives.

Try this at home

Pick something you like to eat and find its price in two different places.

Are they the same? They almost never are.

Now the real question: why doesn't the expensive one drop its price? Is it closer? Is it the only one around?

When you find the answer, you'll understand this chapter better than a lot of grown-ups do.

Chapter 6 — When one bucket was enough

There's an old photo in Lia's front room, hanging crooked for as long as anyone can remember. Her great-grandparents are in it, standing in front of a house, with a car, a dog and two small children in their Sunday clothes, one of them trying not to laugh.

"Grandma, were my great-grandparents rich?"

Her grandmother burst out laughing.

"Rich? Your great-grandfather hauled stone at the quarry."

"And the house? And the car?"

"From the quarry, sweetheart. All of it from the quarry."

"And did my great-grandmother work too?"

"No. One wage was enough."

Lia looked around her own house, where her mom and dad both work. And even so, there are months when the bills come out tight.

"With one wage?"

"With one."

One bucket, and there was some left over

Prosper Valley had been just the same. Sammy's grandfather's sawmill was small, but the water came down without stopping. A beaver filled one big bucket a day: that fed the family, fixed the roof, and there was still some left over for the festival.

Now that same house fills two buckets, and they are small ones. The two together don't reach what that one reached.

"Is it because people work less now?"

No. They work more hours than before. And with today's tools, a beaver cuts in one morning what his grandfather cut in three days.

They work more. They make more. And it stretches less.

When something like that happens, don't look for the guilty person. Look at the river.

The river again

In the great-grandfather's day, the water went around and around town before it left. Now it heads straight for Don Giga's belly. Same water, same work: what changed is how many times it goes round.

That's why the bucket got small. And when the bucket gets small, the house brings out another one. And then another. But three small buckets don't do what the big one did.

What Sammy proposed

"So the idea is to have three buckets instead of two?" asked Lia.

"The other way round," said Sammy. "The idea is to go back to filling just one, and for it to be big."

"And who makes the sawmill pay people more?"

"Nobody. With one sawmill, the one who works has nowhere else to go, and the owner pays whatever he likes. With four, whoever wants to keep his best cutter has to pay him better than the one next door. And he does it happily, because he's making money."

"And nobody ordered him to?"

"Nobody. It's the same as the green syrup, the right way up: if there is another corner, the price moves on its own."

What we learned today

• One wage used to be enough. Today it takes two, and not because people work less or make less.
• The second wage wasn't an improvement: it was a patch. Three small buckets don't do what the big bucket did.
• What fixes it isn't a third bucket: it's the river going round and round again.

Try this at home

Find an old photo of your family, on paper if there is one.

Ask the oldest person in your house: how many people in this photo were working, and how many lived on that work?

Write down both numbers and do the same for your house.

Compare them. That's the question of the chapter.

Chapter 7 — Sammy's two buckets

Lia found Sammy in his yard with two buckets in front of him.

"Are you going to the river?"

"No. I'm going to teach you the most boring thing I know. And the most important."

"You've started badly."

"Sit down."

The bucket that is always empty

Sammy tapped the one on the left.

"Everything I earn falls in here. And out of here comes the food, the firewood and my helpers' shoes."

"And how much water is left on Sunday?"

"None. Zero. Empty. My whole life the same: work, fill it, spend it, fill it again. Like breathing."

"So if one day you get sick and can't go to the sawmill…"

"Mm-hmm. That's the question. And it took me twenty years to ask it."

The little hole

He turned it around. Near the bottom edge there was a little hole.

"What's that?"

"That's what I owe Mr. Lendabit. I asked him for twenty coins, and now a trickle runs out here every week. The little hole never rests. It never sleeps. It never takes a holiday."

"Then plug it!"

"That's what I did. Plugging the little hole is the best business there is. No mill gives you as much water as you stop losing."

"Sounds like a trick."

"It sounds like a trick, and it's pure arithmetic."

But there are two kinds of little hole

Sammy came back with a third bucket, with a hole far wider than the first.

"What about that one? Plug it first, it's huge!"

"That one doesn't get plugged. Look properly." And he turned it around.

On the other side it had a pipe going in, not out. And water was falling through it.

"They lent me this one to buy the mill. Yes, water runs out. But more comes in through the pipe than runs out."

"Aaah," said Lia, slowly, the way you do when something clicks.

"That's the whole difference: there are little holes that only let water out, and little holes that come with a pipe. The first you plug as soon as you can. The second you leave alone — plugging it would take away your own pipe."

"And how do I know which is which?"

"Look at what you bought. If it's something you've already eaten — a trip, a dinner — there's only a hole. If it works for you, there's a pipe."

The second bucket

Sammy finally pointed at the one on the right, nearly empty. Nearly.

"I opened this one years ago. I pour a trickle in every week. So little that at first it made me laugh."

"And what good is it, if it's that little?"

"None at all, the first year. Or the second. And here's the strange part: the water in the second bucket starts working on its own. A thread that stays inside too. The next year there's more water working."

"Pour in a glass a week for ten years and I have ten years of glasses."

"You have more. And if you last thirty, far more than you poured in — because the water already in there worked while you slept."

"Then why doesn't everybody do it?"

"Because nothing shows the first few years and people get tired. The second bucket is unbelievably boring… right up until the day it isn't."

And if there's nothing left over

"And if nothing is left over?" said Lia. "At my house there almost never is."

Sammy went quiet. That was the good question.

"Then it isn't your fault, and it isn't your parents'. If the bucket is small, no list will help: first we have to fix the river. But here's the lovely part: you don't need a lot left over, just a little left over always."

What we learned today

• Almost everyone has one bucket only: water comes in and it goes. Sunday it's empty.
• There are two kinds of little hole: one only lets water out, the other comes with a pipe. One you plug; the other you leave in peace.
• The second bucket works while you sleep. Unbelievably boring the first few years. After that, no.

Try this at home

Draw your two buckets on a sheet of paper.

In the first write what comes in, and underneath what goes out.

Now the second: write one single thing, how much you'll pour in this week. It can be one coin.

Put it somewhere you're too lazy to go and get it. That's the whole trick.

Chapter 8 — The two marks on the door frame

On the kitchen door frame at Lia's house there are dozens of little pencil marks. Every birthday her mother stands her with her back to it, rests a book on her head and marks the year.

"Grandma, does the town have marks?"

Her grandmother gave her a funny look.

"Ask Sammy that one."

The two marks

Sammy took her to the town hall. On the big door there were pencil marks just like in her kitchen. But in two columns.

"This one," said Sammy, pointing left, "is what the town makes in a year. The wheat, the timber, the bread."

"And the other?"

"That one is what the town owes."

Both columns climbed every year. But not the same.

"Sammy… the right-hand one goes faster. But the left-hand one goes up too: the town makes more than it used to."

"And that's why it's so hard to see: nobody is getting worse. Everybody is getting better. It's just that one mark gets better faster than the other."

"So owing is bad?"

"No. It doesn't matter how much you owe. It matters how much you owe compared with what you make. If you owe three sacks and you make three a year, that debt has you by the neck. If you make twelve, those same three sacks are nothing at all. You didn't pay back a grain: what changed is what it gets compared with."

"And the other way round? Like now?"

"Then every year the town is a little worse off, without anybody having decided anything. No meeting, no vote. Just two marks at different speeds."

The day the coins arrived

"But I saw the Mayor bring coins," said Lia. "A whole cartload. That fixes it, doesn't it?"

Sammy sat down on the step.

"Answer me one thing. That day an enormous number of coins arrived. Did more bread arrive too?"

"…No. The baker made the same bread as always."

"And what happened to the price of bread?"

Lia's eyes went wide.

"It went up."

"Of course it went up. Twice as many coins were chasing the same loaves. When there are lots of coins and few loaves, the only thing that can move is the price."

"Lia, write this one down, because it's the most important thing in the chapter: money wasn't missing. Bread was missing. And a bread problem doesn't get fixed with coins. It gets fixed by baking."

Lia wrote it in her notebook: "coins + nothing else = prices".

The ovens that are switched off

"And what did the Mayor do?"

"The only thing he could. He made borrowing harder, and prices stopped running. But not one extra loaf appeared. He shrank the line until it fitted the loaves there were. The Mayor has no oven."

"And who has one?"

"That," said Sammy, "is the whole question."

They went down to the far side of the river. Three workshops stood shut there, machines still.

"Are they broken?"

"No. They work perfectly. They're waiting for an order that never comes. Nobody needs a new oven: the coin has to reach the ones already there."

Lia counted on her fingers.

"If they get lit… more bread gets made, so they hire, and whoever gets paid buys things… and the town collects more without charging anybody more!"

She looked back at the two columns.

"The right-hand one slows down on its own. The left-hand one climbs. And they even out."

"And the day they even out," said Sammy, "the town's debt stops being a problem. Without anybody having paid back a single grain."

What we learned today

• It doesn't matter how much you owe, but how much compared with what you make. Count which mark climbs faster.
• Money wasn't missing. Bread was missing. And a bread problem gets fixed by baking.
• A coin that reaches a switched-off oven doesn't raise the price: it lights the oven.

Try this at home

On a tall sheet of paper, draw two marks starting at the bottom, together.

One is what you do, the other what you owe: one climbs for each thing you finish, the other for each thing you leave pending.

On Sunday, look at which climbed faster.

That's the only question in the chapter.

Chapter 9 — The toll nobody sees

At the entrance to the market there's a little blue booth, and inside lives a very kind gentleman called Don Anselmo. Every time somebody buys something, he keeps three coins out of every hundred.

Nobody complains. Almost nobody even notices, because the price already comes with the three coins tucked inside it.

Lia had walked past it for years without paying attention. Until the day she paid attention.

Sammy's sums

Sammy had his notebook open on the counter and a face like thunder.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm doing Don Anselmo's sums."

"It's three coins out of a hundred. That's not much."

"That's what I thought. Don Anselmo doesn't charge for the money: he charges for the movement. Follow one coin." And he put one down on the counter.

"You buy lemons from Mrs. Uva. It goes past the booth: he charges. Mrs. Uva pays the boy at the market. He charges. The boy buys bread. He charges. I pay my helper, and my helper buys lemonade at your stand…"

"He charges," said Lia.

"He charges," said Sammy.

"So the better the town works, the more Don Anselmo takes."

"Exactly. Which is why I've had this face on for two hours."

The two booths

There are two booths at the market, not one.

Don Anselmo is in the first one. His three coins leave the valley and never come back.

In the second one the market tax is collected. Those coins come out of your pocket too — but they come back: they fix the bridge, they pay Mrs. Pluma and they turn on the lights in the square.

"So they aren't the same thing," said Lia.

"No. One gives them back to you turned into a school; the other gives you nothing back."

What the beavers did

And here is the best idea in the book, according to Lia.

Nobody went to smash the blue booth. Nobody shouted at Don Anselmo, who is very kind besides. One Sunday, Sammy gathered the small businesses of the valley:

"We're going to put up our own booth."

The same three coins out of every hundred. Nobody would pay one more. The difference is where they land: instead of leaving the valley, they fall into a chest in the square with three locks on it, and that chest belongs to everybody.

"And what do we do with the chest?" asked Mrs. Uva.

"The chest doesn't lend money," said Sammy. "The chest answers. If Tomas needs planks today and gets paid in two months, I hand them over and sleep well: if something goes wrong, the chest pays."

And it hardly ever has to be opened. It's enough that everybody knows it's there.

The chest doesn't work miracles. What it does is make people dare.

What we learned today

• Some tolls are so small nobody sees them: three out of every hundred looks like nothing.
• Don Anselmo doesn't charge for the money: he charges for the movement. The more the coin runs, the more he takes.
• You don't smash the booth: you put up one of your own, and make the coins land inside the town.

Try this at home

Take a hundred beans. That's your money.

"Spend" it five times: every time you move it from one pile to another, put three beans aside on a saucer.

Count the saucer at the end. You'll get about fourteen.

Fourteen out of every hundred, from a toll that looked like three.

Chapter 10 — The school that charges for teaching

Nina is Tomas the Fox's oldest daughter.

At sixteen she went off to the Great Academy of the North Valley: stone columns and a golden sign. Getting in cost Tomas four years of fixing roofs, and a signed paper promising to pay for a very long time.

Nina studied for four years. She got good grades. She came back with a diploma tied with a red ribbon, and spent eight months looking for work.

She didn't find any.

And every month, right on time, the bill from the Academy kept arriving.

What Lia didn't understand

"Wait," said Lia. "If Nina didn't find work, does the Academy give the money back?"

Tomas laughed, but not happily.

"No."

"Does it ask Nina how it went for her?"

"They've never asked."

The one-way accounts

"Look at what the Academy counts and what it doesn't," said Sammy. "They count how many coins come in and on what day. They have all of that written down."

"And what goes out?"

"They don't count it. They don't know how many found work, or what they earn, and they could. The thing is something else: nobody bothers measuring something if they don't get paid to measure it."

And there's the whole chapter: the Academy does what its rules ask it to do.

The rule Sammy proposed

At the town meeting, Sammy proposed one sentence:

The Academy gets paid when the student is working. If the student isn't working, it doesn't get paid.

There was uproar. The head came from the North Valley with a very sour face.

"That's unfair! We can't guarantee that things go well for every student!"

And here's the good bit, because Sammy told him he was right.

"Absolutely right. That's why there's a second part: if in the first two years you can see the student isn't going to make it, tell them and let them go. And don't charge them anything."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. If they weren't right and you took them anyway, the mistake was yours. You chose them. And you charged for choosing them."

The head opened his mouth and nothing came out.

"What doesn't work," said Sammy, "is charging a student for four years when they were never going to make it. That isn't teaching. That's charging."

What Nina learned

The rule passed, though it took three town meetings and a lot of shouting. And what changed wasn't the money: it was what they taught. Before, they taught Nina to make a nice list and wait. Now, to walk into a place and say:

"You lose two hours every morning sorting the deliveries. I know how to fix that. If it works, pay me a share of what you save. If it doesn't, nothing."

Nina got a job three weeks later.

And notice the difference: she didn't go to ask for something. She went to bring something.

What we learned today

• Whoever charges for teaching has to show that they taught.
• Nobody bothers measuring something if they don't get paid to measure it.
• If the school got it wrong choosing you, the mistake is theirs. And you don't charge somebody else for it.

Try this at home

Think of something you learned this year, anywhere at all.

Now answer: how would you prove you learned it, without showing the grade?

Grades tell you what you did on one test. What you know, you show by doing it.

Chapter 11 — Grandmother's tree

The storm arrived on a Tuesday night and was gone by Wednesday. In those few hours it took the north road away. It didn't break it: it took the whole thing. And the flour and the medicine came in along that road.

Winter was six weeks away.

The debts you can't see

Mayor Arthur was the last to arrive, with his hat in his hands. (When he carries his hat in his hands, something is wrong.)

"It can be fixed," said Tomas. "I need lumber, twelve men and three weeks."

"And coins," said the Mayor. "There's the trouble: the town owes money. To people far away."

"And where is this thing we owe? I don't see it."

"It's written on little slips of paper. And the slips are in a box. And the box is in another town, miles and miles from here."

Lia looked around the square: the fountain, the apple tree, the lanterns. All exactly the same as always. A town's debts are invisible.

The fair

The next day was the fair of the little slips, and Lia climbed into the cart without asking anybody.

It worked like this: the Mayor said how many slips he wanted to sell, and the people from outside said what they would charge him for lending. He couldn't argue: say yes, or go home.

A gentleman in a very long coat looked at his papers and said:

"Eight."

"Eight!" said the Mayor. "Last year it was four."

"Last year the town owed half as much."

They rode home in silence the whole way.

Grandmother's tree

Lia sat down under the old apple tree in the square. Her grandmother planted it, and it gives ten apples a year. Not eleven, not nine. Ten. That tree can't count to eleven.

And that's where the idea came to her.

"Sammy, come here. How many apples would you give for this whole tree?"

"Depends on whether I believe it'll keep giving." He crouched down to look at the trunk. "If it's healthy, I'll pay you many years in advance. If I spot a dry branch… I'll pay you very few and leave in a hurry."

Lia jumped up and drew it in the dirt with a stick:

One: how many apples the tree gives. That's what the town produces.

Two: how many years people pay you in advance. That's how much they trust you.

"And what the tree is worth is the two of them multiplied."

Sammy stood looking at the drawing, and his face went odd.

"Lia, that means something very ugly."

"What?"

"That the tree can be giving twice the apples… and be worth less. If they go from paying you thirty years to fifteen, it gives more and is worth less."

"Yes," said Lia, very seriously. "That's what happened to us yesterday at the fair."

The first snow

Tomas laid the last board four days before the snow, with the whole town lighting the way with lanterns.

That winter the sawmill, the mill and the bakery didn't stop for a single day.

In the spring they went back to the fair. And the gentleman in the long coat said:

"Five."

From eight to five. Without having paid back almost anything.

"Why did it go down?" she asked Sammy that night.

"Because this winter the town made more apples. The tree looked healthier, and the gentleman trusted it for more years. A town isn't saved by paying. It's saved by producing."

What we learned today

• A town's debts are invisible. And the price is set by the outsider, not by the town.
• A tree is worth the apples it gives, times the years people pay you in advance.
• That's why it can give twice the apples and be worth less — and the other way round: produce more, and the price drops on its own.

Try this at home

Find a tree, a bush or a plant in a pot.

Count what it gives in a year: apples, tomatoes, flowers.

Ask somebody in your house: how many years of this would you pay for the whole plant?

You'll see that first they ask you whether it's healthy. The whole chapter fits in there.

Chapter 12 — The Prosper Valley wheel

A year later, the river was running again.

And nobody had taken anything away from Don Giga: quite the opposite, he had more work than ever. From the square you could see Barnaby hauling logs, and no basket at his door any more.

Lia took out a piece of charcoal and drew a wheel on a plank.

The wheel

"Look, Sammy. It starts up here."

One. The town shares the work out instead of giving it all to one.

Two. More money stays running in the street, not sitting still in a belly.

Three. People dare to open things: a bakery, a workshop, a lemonade stand.

Four. Everything that opens needs hands. There is more work.

Five. And all those people working put coins in the booth — without anybody's taxes going up. With those coins the bridge gets fixed, more carts come, and there's more work to share out.

"And we're back at one."

"And we're back at one. There's no trick, Lia: people look for it, and because they can't find it, they don't believe it. It just needs to go round once."

And now the important part

But this chapter isn't about the wheel. It's about the following Sunday.

Sammy climbed onto the wooden crate with his notebook and the whole town in front of him.

"Three years ago I promised that we'd pay off the whole debt in twelve years. I did the sums again, three times. And it does not get paid off in twelve years. I got it wrong."

Somebody coughed at the back. Lia felt her stomach tighten: she loved Sammy very much and she was afraid of the laughing.

"What does come out is that the debt stops growing, and then it gets smaller, because the town grows faster than it does. That part I stand by. The other part I take back."

He climbed down. And none of the things Lia feared happened.

Mrs. Uva started clapping. Then Tomas. Then the whole town. And even Don Giga stamped a foot, which for a brontosaurus is applause.

What Lia understood that afternoon

"They clapped for you because you got it wrong," she said on the way home. "I don't understand that."

"They didn't clap because I got it wrong. They clapped because I said so. Anybody gets things wrong, Lia. The hard part is telling people before anyone has caught you. Now, when I say something works, they'll believe me — because they heard me say the other thing didn't."

And if one day your sums come out different from mine, climb up on the crate yourself and say it out loud.

And now go. The river is running and it's a nice day.

What we learned today

• The wheel has no trick: work gets shared, money runs, businesses open, there is work, more coins come in. And round again.
• The hard part is the first turn. The rest come on their own.
• Saying "I got it wrong" before anyone catches you doesn't cost you authority: it's the only thing that gives you any.

Try this at home

Draw your own wheel, with five boxes, for something in your life: your room, your team.

What happens in box one? And what pushes box two?

And then the question of the whole book:

What does it take to make it go around the first time?

The Prosper Valley secret

If you got this far, you've earned this.

Prosper Valley doesn't exist, and nobody has ever seen a brontosaurus sitting in a river. But everything that happened is really happening, in the United States. It's just that over there they aren't animals, and they have longer names.

Who's really who

Look at Don Giga one more time. He isn't the bad guy. Big companies do things nobody else can do — planes, hospitals, vaccines. The problem was never their size. It was the belly: money goes in and never comes back down to the street.

The real numbers

And now the part that might surprise you: almost every number in the story is real.

The fifteen and the sixty-one. Out of every $100 that goes into a big chain, after the first turn only $15 are left in the neighborhood. Through an independent business, $61 are.

The desk charged at fourteen. In a Defense audit, a $2 screw turned up invoiced to the government at $47. It wasn't illegal, and that is exactly the problem.

The full version is in USA: It Is Now.

One last thing, and it isn't about money

Sammy had promised something. He did the sums again, they came out different, and he said so out loud before anyone caught him.

That almost never happens. And it is what separates somebody you can trust from somebody who just wants to be right.

Now you know all of it. Go and count.

What we learned today

• Don Giga is the big companies; Sammy, the small businesses; the river, money moving.
• Almost every number is real: the $15 against $61, the $2 screw invoiced at $47.
• I didn't ask you to believe. I asked you to count.

Try this at home

Pick one character from the table and go and find them in your town.

Who is the Don Giga where you live? Who is Sammy?

Is there a hole in a bridge somewhere that's gone years without being fixed?

Tell somebody older about it, and watch the face they make.