Program Your Own Money
The credit crunch may actually be good for business.
No, not in the short term. When money becomes more expensive, it is harder for most businesses to get the capital they need to conduct their most basic operations. Even successful companies borrow money to buy materials, pay employees, and cash in on invoices that have yet to be paid. Without the cash flow provided by banks, it is a lot harder for many companies to function -- much less expand.
With any luck, however, the future of business will be entirely less dependent on banks and the currency they lend into existence. The Fortune 500 will become something other than brand names on piles of debt, and business operations will be characterized more by what companies produce than how much credit their "stories" can earn them on one of the stock exchanges.
Yes, we are watching something melt down. But I'd argue the thing that's dying is not business itself, but a financial parasite -- a speculative marketplace that no longer funds business but instead seeks to extract value from healthy commerce. More a funds vampire than an infuser of needed capital, the investment industry has been exposed as a drag on business. The future of commerce looks bright to me because it may be unencumbered by the weight of this non-productive capital.
This all began back in the Renaissance, when a waning monarchy was looking for ways to preserve its power in the face of a rising merchant class. The merchants were becoming richer than the royals. So the monarchs came up with an idea: chartered monopolies. By granting one of these new companies exclusive province over a particular industry or region, monarchs earned their undying loyalty -- as well as a generous portion of shares in the enterprise. They began to write laws that favored their chartered companies, such as those preventing inhabitants of colonies from creating any value for themselves; colonists had to ship raw resources back to the mother country, where they were processed into clothes or other finished goods.
This model of business-by-extraction carried over to finance as well. European towns had used local currencies for centuries. Farmers would bring their wheat to a grain store, which would give them receipts for the amount of grain to be kept for them. These receipts served as local currency. The system was so efficient, and people were living so well, that people of this era were taller than at any time until the last few decades. By making local currency illegal, a monarch could force people to use his own more expensive "coin of the realm" instead. Instead of being earned into existence, this money was borrowed into existence.
Over the next four hundred years, the business of money slowly grew bigger than business itself. A central bank creates money and charges interest to the next bank down the line, and so on, until it gets to the business that needs it to do something useful. The problem is, more value is being extracted on each level than businesses can produce. There are simply too many institutions -- too many lenders -- to be paid.
As the banking industry grew bigger and less regulated, institutions consolidated, making the notion of a local lender obsolete, as well. Loans are centrally processed by bankers who have little knowledge of the companies or people to whom they are lending -- and little reason to learn about them, since they are simply packaging and selling the loans, anyway.
The house of cards had to fall eventually. The truly amazing thing is how long it lasted. And before we attempt to prop it back up again, we might consider whether there is a better way to do business. I think there is.
The beauty of this era -- this networked, hi-tech, and decentralized world -- is that we no longer have to do everything from the center. The laws and regulations requiring us to run our finances and resources through tremendous industrial age corporations are more obsolete than ever. And real people are beginning to catch on to how inefficient and risky it is to conduct their transactions in this way. They are starting to trust the real world around them more than the mythologies created by the public relations departments of distant corporations.
Moneys are programmed. They behave in certain ways because they have been embedded with certain biases. Today's credit crisis, for example, is no more the fault of particular bankers' behaviors than the underlying biases of the centralized, monopoly currencies we use. At least that's the opinion of a growing population of citizens and businesses turning to the use of what they call "complementary currencies" -- alternative, net-enabled, bottom-up money systems that let them accomplish what money loaned out by the Fed just isn't letting them do anymore.
Complementary currencies treat money as a utility, rather than an asset class. Their bias is towards functionality instead of savings, transaction instead of speculation. And they are spreading quickly across America, not just in the crunchy progressive Northwest (where people have been working on local and LETS currencies for decades), but also in the dying industrial towns of the rust belt, the inner city of the New York metropolitan area, and the non-local business-to-business transactions of strapped corporations themselves.
In 1995, as recession rocked Japan, unemployment rose and currency became scarce. This made it particularly difficult for people to continue to take care of their elderly relatives, who often lived in distant areas. The Sawayaka Welfare Foundation developed a complementary currency by which a young person could earn credits for taking care of an elderly person, and then spend them on the care of their own relatives in distant towns. At last count, the alternative currency was accepted at 372 health centers throughout Japan, and all administered by a simple piece of software. Close to a thousand alternative currencies are now in use in Japan.
In October 2008, as the credit crisis paralyzed business lending, companies started signing on to barter networks in droves. One system called ITEX, which allows businesses to trade merchandise, reported a 37% increase in registrations for the month of October alone. Utilizing more than 250 exchange services now available through the Internet, companies can barter directly with each other, or earn US-dollar-equivalent credits for the merchandise they supply to others. This bartering already accounts for 3 billion dollars of exchanges annually in the United States.
Complementary currencies hearken back to an earlier form of money -- the local, grain-based currencies in wide use throughout Late Middle Ages Europe before Renaissance corporatism and centralized money schemes were invented by monarchs. Local currencies were earned -- not borrowed -- into existence. They reflected the abundance of the season's grain, and did not depend on artificial scarcity for their value.
Local currencies actually lost value over time. The grain store needed to be paid, and some grain was always lost to moisture or rats. This meant people wanted to spend the money as quickly as possible, rather than holding on to it. So towns spent and reinvested their money constantly. People did preventative maintenance on their equipment, and paid their workers well. They worked less and ate better than we do today. (Women were taller in Late Middle Ages England than they are in 2009.) People had so much extra wealth that they invested in their futures by building cathedrals.
That's right -- the cathedrals of Europe were not built with Vatican dollars, but with local currency. The people of these towns were looking for ways to help their grandchildren profit off current wealth. Cathedrals attracted pilgrims and tourists, and have kept many towns profitable to this day.
By making local currencies illegal, monarchs were able to monopolize money, and tilt investment and wealth towards the center. People could no longer earn money into existence -- they would have to borrow it from a central bank, at interest. While this kind of money worked great when it was allowed to function alongside a local currency, it was not particularly well suited for local transactions. It was just too expensive and too scarce. It did not reflect the needs or bounty of a town, but the needs and artificial scarcity of a market created by a monarch. Going into business meant borrowing from the central bank and then paying it back, at interest. And where did the extra money come from? Someone else who borrowed it and would necessarily go bankrupt.
Either that, or borrow more money. And thus, the requirement of a central-bank-dominated economy for infinite expansion -- often at the expense of the environment and labor. But most importantly, the new economic scheme was designed to drain wealth from the periphery -- such as colonies, territories, and rural areas -- and pay it back to the middle. And it's the way banks work to this day, each borrowing from higher, more centralized authority.
In the midst of a global meltdown where larger corporations can no longer acquire the credit they need to do business, Internet-enabled complementary currencies breathe life into the decentralized marketplace of real businesses. Our networks give us a way to verify transactions and develop trust. Second, perhaps more importantly, they help us see the way many of the tools we use are the result of programs. Where availability of printing presses may have encouraged counterfeiting of official currencies, the availability of computers and networks is encouraging the creation of altogether new ones. We are proving more likely to treat our money as software, and to write our own.
Local currencies have spread far beyond the experimental fringe to over 2100 US towns at last count, both because of the new scarcity of dollars as well as the availability of software and tools. Beginning a local currency requires no store of capital -- it is as easy as visiting the websites for local economic transfer (LETS) systems or Time Dollars.
In my own town, for example, there's a tiny organic cafe called Comfort that is seeking to expand. John, the owner secured a second location for a sit-down restaurant, but doesn't have enough money to renovate the space. Although he has great credit, he can't get a loan from any of the banks in town. Even though the bankers know him, they don't have lending authority from the conglomerates that own them. So what's John to do?
John has turned to the community for help. He invented "Comfort Dollars" that people can buy at a discount of 20%. If you spend $1000, you receive $1200 in Comfort Dollars that can be spent at the restaurant. John gets the cash infusion he needs to complete his expansion -- and for cheaper than the bank would charge him. The local community gets a 20% discount on food they would be buying anyway, as well as the chance to invest in making their town better. This is a 20% return on investment, payable as fast as the investor and his family can eat.
The Comfort Dollars scenario reveals just how much of the current mess has resulted from the way we "outsourced" our finances to begin with. The real problem underlying the global financial meltdown has much less to do with low efficiency, bad labor, or poor innovation than it does with the decreased utility of the financial industry itself. Money has stopped working properly -- at least in its capacity to lubricate transactions. The sad part is that money is working exactly as it was designed to.
Once we accept the fact that the money and banks we have grown accustomed to using are not the only ways to generate capital, we liberate ourselves and our businesses from a finance industry that has enjoyed a monopoly over our commerce for much too long. They have not only abused our trust through corrupt self-dealing, but abused their privilege through systemic usury. Businesses are only obligated to support their employees, owners, and customers -- not an entire finance industry.
The financial meltdown will help many businesses realize that their priorities have been artificially skewed towards making bankers and investors happy -- and their own communities less so. As we start to finance locally or from our own non-local communities, our services will become more finely tuned towards them as well. We will get better at what we do, rather than obsessed with growth (to pay back lenders) or financing (to achieve that growth through acquisition).
This is all good -- at least for businesses that have any remaining connection to a community or core competency. It will be possible to scale companies appropriately rather than to infinite expansion. It will be easier to take and share profits rather than watch them be extracted by last year's lenders. It will favor local and connected businesses instead of big chains operated from afar by corporations behaving as if it were still the 1500's and they had a royal imprimatur on their business license.
The future of business -- real business -- is bright as it has been for close to a millennium. It just might not be reflected in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for quite some time, if ever. That's because instead of earning money, we'll be creating value.
Douglas Rushkoff discusses subjects related to this article in his upcoming book, Life Inc, to be published in June.
Image by photograham, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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government reaction?
Eco-mmunity
Thanks Douglas. That's a welcome, sober, sensible look at the situation.
It makes sense to me to view, understand and participate in this whole thing not as a crisis, but as a transition. As an opportunity. Don't panic. Please participate, plant, proceed.
"the thing that's dying is not business itself, but a financial parasite"
To this I would certainly agree. As well, I would take further the notion that it is simply a rotting, decomposing and composting of obsolete operating systems. With community, connection and yes, comfort, growing in its place.
It may even be as simple as "supply and demand"; the demand for sustainability now outweighs the demand for "money"/old economics. Or, ecology trumps economy. And one way to participate and flourish in a rotting economy is to use this dirty mess as compost for a new ecology.
After all, ecology means "knowledge of house" and economy means "management of house"
There's a sign on the door of the planet, put there by the knowledgable Eco-mmunity:
Under New Management
Paper
pervasiveness of cultural status archetype needs addressing too
Hi Douglas,
Your incisive analyses and clear narrations are always illuminating. In this instance I'd suggest there is further that one most go in analysis and conclusion than to say that the current implosion is indicative of the removal of a core underlying problem of an unnatural, unstable and impossible to perpetuate centralized monetary system (birthed out of the aim to perpetuate privilege), thus freeing business to serve its own communities better.
There are multiple important further directions of depth that I offer as productive of contemplation, discussion and innovative action: - popular culture's relationship to cultural status archetypes and the forces underlying that, which interrelates in trio of 1) the status archetypes of popular culture, 2) money systems/culture and 3) business systems/culture (culture and influencers of culture is something you have elsewhere expounded on at length, but here you've not focused on that important dimension) - a systems analysis of the full complement of major global forces converging on this interlocked trio of the status archetypes of popular culture, money systems/culture and business systems/culture -- for if we fail to reveal the axis of market behavior with antipodal cultural ends denoted by objectives of unmoderated elitism (perpetuation of privilege, extreme centralization/monoculturalization) vs. objectives of cultural integrity (internalization of economic factors, i.e., diffusion of empowerment/understanding/polyculturalization), then we may discover too late that the grass roots approach to money systems diffusion (tending towards cultural integrity within the limited spheres touched by those local systems) which you promote is insufficient of itself to replace the most influential (largest scale) money systems/cultures required to fund those businesses and markets (media, high-tech, energy, large agribusiness, defense, national or global franchises, etc.) found most influential to the core causative cultural memes on which the trio of 1) the status archetypes of popular culture, 2) money systems/culture and 3) business systems/culture are based and propagate.
For example, one risk seems to be that the highly pervasive global rush to free market capitalism, and its ideals -- while setting historical world opponents (such as Russia, US, China, etc.) largely on the same page -- leads to an economic war which redivides lines of influence and interest from geopolitical to a new multi-national corporatocratic hierarchy of global indenturing. It seems to me that the notions you espouse apply to this realm as well, but perhaps with some distinctly different environments, so prerequisites to successful money systems/culture innovation, no? Could you address how greater cultural integrity of money systems/culture might be strategically infused into larger scale enterprises?
Else, why may that not be necessary? (E.g., do you project that major corporations and their behaviors will fall in line with the sensibilities and approaches of those examples you provide? Maybe they'll find those approaches as more suitable paths to their original objectives and constitutions? Or maybe they'll have no choice but to turn a new leaf? Or maybe they will awake to some new reality?)
Thanks for your always insightful views. : )
Reed Burkhart (merely "one reed" among many :-)
taller
The system was so efficient, and people were living so well, that people of this era were taller than at any time until the last few decades.
They worked less and ate better than we do today. (Women were taller in Late Middle Ages England than they are in 2009.)
[mmphosis peers over the crowd from the vantage point of someone who has grown very very tall and asks...]
Is the idea to trade in the old failing money system and in exchange become taller?
[someone shorter and wiser might use a ladder]
Tell us, please. How do we get tall?
The solution is actually in place, has been all along
I am speaking about the solution to the economic woes we are facing. If you think this crisis can be ended by simply balancing some equations, less spending here, more spending there, manipulate some interest rates, then I have a message for you:
YOUR WORLD VIEW IS WRONG!
There is a practical solution in place and it has been there since 1933 but what it truly requires is a little recalibration of the mind.
Ask yourselves the following questions if you haven't already:
Why do I labour for 25 years to pay off a house that took all of a month to build?
Add to this, why am I paying so much money, by way of labour, to banks who did absolutely no labour whatsoever in the construction of my home?
Why am I paying so much for products that are produced from resources that come from my own land, my own planet?
Why do I feel that deep down in my gut there is something very wrong here but I continue to go along with what everyone else is doing by virtue of the fact that, everyone else is doing it?
I am hoping you have pondered these questions before because if you have you will be happy to know that you are not alone. Not only are you not alone, prior to this current crisis there were actually good people working on preemptively solving this dilemma we face. Their legacy is still in tact, albeit all but forgotten, but we can change that.
In 1933 USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and a whole slew of nations declared bankruptcy. When we defaulted on our debts our creditors demanded, as per the contract, that we hand over our collateral. That collateral was gold. That gold represented the peoples wealth, the nations wealth. It represented each individuals stake in his or her nation. So by handing over our gold we would basically give up all equity that we hold in our respective nations. That is, if it weren't for a few very progressive thinking government repesentatives.
The Set-off account
They couldn't just take our gold and give it away, thus rendering our share in our country worthless. They had to replace it with something of intrinsic value. So the clever accountants came up with a plan.
From 1933 onwards every person born and issued a birth certificate was alotted a trust fund. This trust fund is tracked by a "bond tracking number"(name may vary from country to country) which you can locate on your birth certificate. Usually on the back, top-right. What this trust fund was meant to do was allow us, the citizens of the country, the ones who build and maintain the roads, schools, hospitals, homes, civic centers, the same people that enhance the lives of our countrymen and women with art, music, theatre, and of course the ones who keep us all alive; the farmers, doctors, vets, the list goes one, it was to allow us to "set off" our national debt with nothing but our signatures and in doing so maintain our equity in the country that we have built.
You see it works like this. The government, as a result of having gone bankrupt and handing over all of our gold, is in debt to us the people. So how does the government repay us for all that gold? It can't repay us with money because that is simply more debt. Money in case you didn't know is debt. Those notes in your wallet, they are not yours. They are the private possession of someone else. At any given time they can, by law, give 72 hours notice and demand all their notes back. The even worse part is, all this debt that gets put into circulation usually ends up in banks at some point and the banks simply create more debt because they are using this as collateral to borrow 2 - 9 times that amount again. When you borrow money for a house, that debt is put into the banks ledgers as a deposit and again it is borrowed against for even more debt. This system was destined for failure from the outset and perhaps that was the intention all along, but that is a whole other discussion.
SO the government basically wanted to settle it's debt with us. SO the agreement was this. If you have a house to pay off, utility bills, car, anything that enhances your life as a citizen of your country and would put equity back into your own land, then you can simply sign for the debt and the government will discharge it. Instead of doing this however we opted for the more sinister plan of pretending that money was in fact wealth and we started throwing it around all too often thinking, quite wrongly, that it would pay our debts. We went mad with desire and that desire has led to this massive crescendo of debt we are witness to today. You can't pay off debt with more debt, it just doesn't work.
I would like to suggest to the board proprietors that they interview a person who is far more educated on this matter than I as I feel this is truly important information. Sorely needed at this point in time.
Without trying to sound like too much of an alarmist we could be facing a problem greater than many of us would have considered.
If in 1933 the banksters took our gold as collateral, what will they take this time?
The reason I ask this is because the collateral that is being used by our government to continue their relationship with these same banksters is us! Well .. in a manner of speaking. What they are holding in collateral are our bonds. Our name that appears on our birth certificate is basically a corporate id attached to the trust fund. Problem is, when you say that you are that person (the name that appears on the birth certificate/bond), then in legal terms what you have done is enjoined. A term that means you have taken responsibility for that entity etc... Get the picture?
Quite simply put, we have handed everything over to the bankers through our ignorance and greed. EVERYTHING!
So no more, lets get it back to it's rightful owner, and that's us. All of us, even those horrible banker types ;-) They just need some re-education, but they are people too and deserve protection just like the rest of us. Anyhow ... to learn more about this set-off account/treasury account please follow the links below.
Love and peace to you all
Mary Elizabeth Croft is one person that has researched quite deeply into this subject and she seems like a really wonderful person. Her free book is: http://www.spiritualeconomicsnow.net/solutions/How_I_08.pdf
A radio interview can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2byZlTsOA&feature=PlayList&p=993B845BD36696B7&index=0
Her blog is: http://spiritualeconomicsnow.net/
Excited but still confused
I am still confused on how all of this money hacking is going to pan out. I am 100% in favor of reclaiming wealth from those who do nothing but extract it.
But with so many different currencies popping up, which one do you choose? What happens if it is community based and you move to a different state? It seems to me that eventually you will need a centralised currency to translate one currency into another. If that is the U.S. dollar it defeats the purpose of local currency, doesn't it?
www.tri-freedom.com
Brad...
Historically, like any monopoly, centralized currencies have only come about via government regulation/coercion (like the chartered merchant monopolies discussed in the article), and they have almost always been disguised forms of wealth redistribution. The common person, knowing little of economics and monetary theory (usually not considered a valuable subject to teach in public schools) typically acquiesces to the imposed regulations on the basis of the disseminated "common good" propaganda.
When people are able to exchange with one another freely and voluntarily, the respective economy is far more stable and sustainable, and perhaps the most important feature for achieving this is freedom in money.
While there is no telling for sure what a future in free-banking and liberalized money markets may look like, I will try to answer your question more directly...
It is not unlikely that local currencies based on specific labor markets, like the one started by the Sawayaka Welfare Foundation, will be limited in their exchange to the valuing-participants within the surrounding communities of which such elderly-care is applicable. Given that such a currency lacks sufficient redeemability (and thus lacks checks on insolvency and inflation), and given that it's backed by such a specific form of labor (which is not uniformly divisible, easily measureable, nor readily of value to most of the population) it seems to pose sizeable pricing and circulation difficulties, making it unlikely to find widespread usage or be exchangeable with other goods and services on a broad scale.
Most currencies would likely be backed by gold, silver, or perhaps even agriculture (i.e. grain stores). These widely valued, uniform, easily measureable and divisible goods can be stored/deposited in warehouses (a.k.a. banks) for safekeeping, while currencies (a.k.a warehouse receipts) are used in daily exchanges to represent the actual cash (gold/silver/grain).
For example, suppose I hold my earnings with Bank X. Bank X issues its currency to me (receipts), which let's say is representative of a certain measure of gold that the bank keeps as part of its reserves. Now, suppose you are a grocer and I buy some apples from you. In order to pay for my purchase, I give you some Bank X receipts. But suppose you aren't a customer of Bank X. Suppose you are a customer of Bank Y. Well, at the end of the day you deposit the Bank X receipts you received from me in your Bank Y account. Then, Bank Y takes the Bank X receipts you deposited and redeems them with Bank X for the gold that they represent. Bank X transfers this gold from its reserves to Bank Y, and Bank Y deposits the gold in its own reserves.
Now, you brought up an important issue. You said, "It seems to me that eventually you will need a centralised currency to translate one currency into another." Indeed, for the purposes of efficiency in pricing and currency translations, some kinds of standards are crucial, if not necessary, but those standards do not necessitate central authorities, and certainly not a centralized currency.
Standards arise all the time without a central authority, and its no different with money. Its just another form of the spontaneous order that evolves from free and voluntary interactions between billions of individuals on this planet.
For instance, the British pound, or "pound sterling," originally got its name because it was one pound weight of silver. In fact, nearly every contemporary currency unit originated as a unit of weight of gold or silver. The U.S. dollar has its own history. In 16th century Bohemia, a widely circulated and commonly liked one ounce silver coin was minted in the town of Joachimsthal. They became popularly referred to as "Joachimsthalers," which was later shortened to "thalers," and then, of course, "thalers" eventually became "dollars." Upon the U.S.'s founding, one dollar was the equivalent of 0.8 silver ounces, or 1/20 of a gold ounce.
So, in other words, Brad... translating one currency into another would not be problematic, as standards of measurement for monies like gold and silver would likely prove to be basis for determining currency values.
I hope this helps explain better what an economy with liberalized currency and free-banking could look like.
Tryptamind, I went to
Douglas,
I would very much like to engage in the kind of alternative economy which it's my impression you're talking about, be it by exchange of local currency, barter, or whatever comes to hand. I would like to do it now, where I am, not wait for the banks to complete their ongoing process of collapse or the Federal Reserve to deliquesce and a new Utopian era of neo-late Medieval economics be ushered in. Can you recommend a way in which one might presently initiate one's own involvement in such an economy as you seem to be proposing, or whose arrival you evidently anticipate?
The alternative currency in use at a locale nearest to me geographically would be Berkeley hours. A google search tells me that there is apparently no web presence associated with that currency, not even a page explaining what it's all about, just a phone number. I have no idea what this will entail, but I'll call the number in the next day or two. The only thing I can think of beyond that is to start scanning Craigslist for barters and posting some of my own. This seems like a rather feeble beginning. Can you suggest or recommend anything more?
I'm told that Gandhi said we must be the change we wish to see in the world, and I would like to put that principal into practice, or at least give it a reasonable shot.
re: Antero's question
"I also listened to the audio presentation, which rather gave me pause, as it seems to be a promotion for some kind of work-from-home phone business. What is the deal with Mary Elizabeth Croft? Can you tell us more about her, and exactly what business she's in?"
Hi Antero,
If you read the book and listened to the interview then you now know as much about her as I do. I'd heard about the set-off account a while back and whilst researching the subject further I happened across her name. Did the obligatory Google and YouTube search and found the interview and her website. I just thought she did a great job describing the general overview/concept so I pass the youtube link and her book on to people. They can research the matter further themselves. It differs in some details from country to country but they are largely identical.
I believe she has an email address on her blog site, perhaps you could email her and ask her what her job is and what her deal is or whatever. I'm really only after relevant and useful information so that kind of stuff just doesn't interest me whatsoever. Sorry I can't be of further help.
All the best
Michael
The Cost of Value
No system of monetary exchange will solve the dilema of the value of necessity over desire.
Ones needs are always of inherent value ... one's desires only 'but cost one the very value of one's necessity.
The only thing of value beyond food-clothing-shelter ... is the expansion of consciousness.
Which is usually easier to acheive when these basic building blocks are secured ... by natural cooperation with indigenous laws of environmental nature. {the only way satisfaction is actually acheived}
Too many toys ... too any gadgets ... everyone must have one ... resources ... resources ... resources.
Such are only in monetary supply to the degree there is taxable demand.
There are no "powers that be" that are not funded by the desires of others.
Yet "satisfaction" seems no where to be found.
So much excitement seems to be generated in transferring desire from causing problems ... to solving problems ...
Yet the infinite logic of the "Sage" is that this game is never one ... all of it costs one their inherent sense of satisfaction.
Whether eating the good or evil fruits ... Maya is the name of the game.
De-siring ones self off the throne of inherent satisfaction ... both the problems and solutions of humanistic society lie only outside of basic necessity.
No one commands a person who's necessities are fulfilled ... desires are the real "taxation" of ones freedom.
One could say the head and tail of the serpent/dragon are nothing but the "costing of value" ... and "the value of costing" ... having now been conditioned that "payment" of some kind or other will always be at the base of exchange.... {misnomer}
Excellent!
I love it when someone can intersperse humor with evident depth of thought with 'concision' (commercial break here).
So, heh! Yeah! What is the ratio of expanded consciousness versus dollar-per-minute?!?
We are just beginning to get a kind of 'cosmic joke' from the news of a 'Made-off' (with the money) and the 'little loophole' of our current 'law' that allows a 'sink-hole' for those who 'want more! now! more more more!'
And so they use their 'debit/credit' cards to 'browse' and 'buy' and still: haven't really paid for anything until the next 'billing-cycle'.
In the meantime . . . . people are cutting down the rainforests of the world for the sake of a 'burger-farm' and so we can have a '.99' dollar 'fill-me-up' sandwhich.
NexT! And hour later: gee, I'm hungry agin!
NO problem, friend! Just pop into yer car, burn a few cents of petrol! Get on down (or up: costs more gas going uphill . . . like, dOH! (a Portland, Oregon expression merely 'popularized' by Matt Groenig)) and pull thru' the 'drive-by-window' and get ANOTHER cow on a bun! (many thanks to Brazil and other AMERICIN-like corporate subsidiaries who kill the earth to make burgers like ours so cheap!)
Uhm. Where waz i?
Oh! ha! Good one Pippy!.
Excellent!
---------
ABC; 123: Let's Go!<
Taller = Healthier ?
Local currency et al
OK, I made the call about Berkeley Hours, which actually turn out to be Berkeley Bread. But really I should say "which turn out to have been Berkeley Bread," because the relevant number is disconnected and that local currency is apparently defunct. Further digging shows that out of 14 local currencies attempted in California since 1991, only one was still in use as of 2004, according to a PDF on the topic that I downloaded bearing that date (the document does not name the community in which said currency is used). I discovered no more recent such documents on the topic.
So apparently as far as alternate currencies are concerned there ain't no revolution to join. Here I am in what is often alleged to be (or alleges itself to be) one of the most socially conscious locales in the world, the SF Bay Area, and I can't do it. If not here, then where? As far as money is concerned, it seems that I and everyone here are still abjectly dependent on possession of U.S. Treasury-issued, central-bank controlled (in this case the U.S. Federal Reserve) units of that banker-beloved currency which is debt.
Nor have I found any "Internet-enabled complementary currencies," though admittedly I haven't yet searched for them. I'd be pleased if somebody would point my way to some.
The only remaining option that I know of is barter, the easiest way to which is presumably Craigslist. I'll go for it, and I'd appreciate any advice, tips, warnings on pitfalls to avoid and other info on how to conduct myself there.
I have no wish to be a cold water-throwing spoilsport or naysayer, in fact very much the opposite: I desire, want, wish for, long for a way out of the rigged game and bankers' trap that is our monetary system. But I'm not finding any. If we're going to make optimistic predictions about new forms of exchange emerging to so liberate us, wouldn't it be nice if there were some actual tangible evidence available to support that idea?
What!??! 'Fly'?
That's it? Only interested in reference to height?
Good article, but
re: Mary Elizabeth Croft
To whom it may (or not) concern... I went to Ms. Crofts website after hearing the (possibly) same very interesting interview that Tryptamynd is speaking of wherein she details her expertise on credit (originally from RedIceCreationsRadio.com).
Link for those who've not heard it: Interview with Mary Elizabeth Croft on credit, contract and the 'person' http://spiritualeconomicsnow.net/mp3files/RICR-080807-mcroft.mp3
Upon requesting more information from her website, I discovered that the business she markets is one of "cash gifting". Just an FYI for anyone wanting to know what she's selling.
Excellent article and fascinating commentary. I'm learning a lot from my membership with RS :)
~ Namaste'