"What does Pittsburgh export? High-end healthcare, university education, financial services. But the steel mills in Erie don't need heart surgery, and the cement plants in Scranton don't need master's degrees in computer science."
"This has led to a disastrous result: Pittsburgh is exchanging credit for physical goods. You are madly printing money to buy their resources. Meanwhile, they are hoarding huge amounts of Pittsburgh notes, but they have no way to spend them."
Marcus held up a finger and traced a downward curve in the air.
"If inter-city settlement volume exceeds five hundred million US dollars in the fourth quarter—and based on the current growth rate, that will happen next month—the tipping point for this one-way flow will be breached."
"Erie and Scranton will have tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, in notes sitting in their accounts, but their cash flow will dry up. After all, notes are just notes, not real money."
