http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/print-your-own-money-build-community.php
photo: Jason Houston/Berkshares
I want anyone who’s got a joke on the tip of their tongue about ‘monopoly money’ to put it out of their mind. Printing your own local community currency is a perfectly legitimate thing to do—you can’t make your own local coins but bills are legal, at least in the US—and can be a great way to encourage shopping at local businesses. It doesn’t replace federal printed currency, but augments it by getting people to make the practical and symbolic gesture of supporting local businesses before national chains.
Think it’s tough to get started, to convince businesses to accept the currency and for people to attach value to it, you may be right. But here are a few examples of places which have taken their local monetary system into their own hands:
Ithaca Hours: Ithaca, New York Region
Around since 1991, Ithaca Hours has been called the “original” hour-based scrip. When founded the average hourly wage in the region was $10, so that was decided to be the baseline to establish the currency. The idea in choosing ‘hours’ as the name for the currency is to remind people that money is “in addition to being a medium of exchange for commodities, [it] represents someone’s labor, the time taken to provide a skill or perform a service. Your time is worth something to someone else”.
Currently Ithaca Hours has about 600 members, and has to date put about US$100,000 worth of Ithaca Hours into circulation.
More: Ithaca Hours
image: Toronto Dollar
Toronto Dollars: Toronto, Canada
Dating back to 1998, the Toronto Dollar is valued on par with the Canadian Dollar. Accepted at over 150 businesses the idea behind them is similar to all local currencies: “Strengthening the local economy and supporting new businesses; keeping your money working and circulating locally; bringing decisions-making back to community.”
Toronto Dollars are available in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 dollars, and contain similar security features to prevent counterfeiting as any nationally circulating currency. Interestingly, Toronto Dollars are printed by the same company which prints Canadian federal currency.
Toronto Dollars also have a charitable component: 10% of Canadian Dollars exhanged for Toronto Dollars is put aside into a Community Fund which then gives out grants to community partners.
More: Toronto Dollar
image: Lawrence.com
REAL Dollars: Lawrence, Kansas
Begun in 2000, REAL dollars (which stands for Realizing Economic Alternatives in Lawrence) were issued in denominations of 1, 3, and 10 dollars with pictures of local Lawrence celebrities on them (William S. Burroughs, Langston Hughes to name two). Now no longer regularly circulating, the REAL dollar of Lawrence, Kansas shows some of the problems with establishing a local currency.
In an interview with Lawrence.com, REAL dollar creator Boog Highberger pointed out two practical obstacles all such currency have to face: 1) Modern businesses don’t have as much use for cash as they once did—how many places don’t accept credit or debit cards? Not many; and 2) Modern businesses rarely go to local suppliers anymore.
As Highberger said at the time, “If we revitalize [REAL dollars] what we need to do is institute some kind of banking system (that would allow users to debit or credit their accounts).”
Which is just what BerkShares is planning on doing...
BerkShares: Western Massachusetts
Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares circulate in the Berkshire region of Western Massachusetts. By some estimates BerkShares is largest circulating local currency in the world, with two million Berkshares issued to date. Bills are issued in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20 and 50. Currently some 350 businesses accept the currency and 5 different banks offer exchange services at 12 locations. BerkShare checking accounts, ATMs and loans are planned.
According to their website, here’s how using BerkShares benefits the local economy:
Everyone benefits from using BerkShares. Consumers benefit from receiving a 10% discount on purchases. Businesses benefit from increased patronage. Local non-profit organizations can also benefit by purchasing BerkShares at the 10% discount rate and selling them at full face value to their supporters. It will take citizens working in their own communities, region by region, to create the kind of systemic change that will lead to sustainable economic practices—practices that foster ecologically responsible production of goods and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Local currencies are a tool to bring about such change. BerkShares are about building community while building the local economy.More on BerkShares: Local Currency for the Berkshire Region
Though these are just four examples of different ways to local currency programs can operate, the EF Schumacher Society has a listing of local currency programs throughout the world, both currently operating, planned and defunct. There are programs throughout the US, in Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Europe (including one that operates in Switzerland which trades against both the Swiss Franc and the Euro).
They also have plenty of resources for communities wanting to start printing their own money, as well as essays and book excerpts on the philosophy behind doing so and the legal principles involved.
image: Lawrence.comLangston Hughes graces the 10 REAL Dollars note
Community Building
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Rob Hopkins of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Culture
From Community Supported Agriculture to a Community Supported Kitchen
WHAT’S A DOLLAR?
By freedomguide
WHAT’S A DOLLAR?
This isn’t a treatise on economics, its a treatise on survival. Who will define what a dollar is-because the future of America depends on the answer
J. Croft
http://freedomguide.blogspot.com
http://freedomguide.wordpress.com
…Or rather, who will we let define what’s a dollar. Because the private banksters of the private federal reserve banking cartel, who have with their illegal central bank have through their ever weakening counterfeit dollar wrecked America. See, the value of a constitutionally correct dollar-the one mandated to be of silver and gold specie-held constant. It held constant due to the scarcity of silver and gold and the difficulty of extracting the rare metals from the earth, crushing the ore, smelting, refining, casting.
Before the 1787 constitution the United States had both Continental dollars and currency issued by each State. Given the huge debts incurred by the Revolutionary War, the classic and futile tactic of printing more money without backing caused inflation… when each dollar buys less because there’s more dollars circulating in the economy. The constitution mandated gold and silver as the lawful money of the land preventing hyperinflation. This was the case until the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln had the Treasury start printing Greenbacks to fund the Union Army and win the war. The Greenback was not backed by precious metals, it was simply issued. When Lincoln was killed the US went back to silver and gold.
It was in1913 that the banking elite looting the planet today set up the tool of our destruction; they snuck through on Christmas Eve both the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment ratifying an illegal income tax. Now, pay attention how the federal reserve system works:
The US treasury weaves the cloth, prints the ink, cuts the “federal reserve notes” dollars then ships it to the federal reserve system for them to LEND BACK TO THE US GOVERNMENT TO ISSUE OUT AT INTEREST. Then, on every April 15th we pay taxes to the internal revenue service which sends the money to pay the interest to the federal reserve central bank.
Because these notes-for debts public and private and not to be used as lawful money as originally printed-had nothing but the “full faith and credit of the United States” backing it, the banksters now had the means to inflate the money supply… making everything cost more and more. It’s surreal to hear old folks talk about how little everything cost. Go to the movies for a quarter. five cents a gallon of gas. A brand new Mustang for 5000 dollars. Buy a home for 20,000 bucks-a lot of times up front. Just insane how much a dollar could buy back then… because it COULD!
You could work a single job, your spouse could stay home take care of the kids and you still had more than enough money to take a couple vacations a year… own a boat and/or small airplane… go to college… start a business or buy a small apartment building… invest.. That was what I call America’s first golden era and the banksters cultivated that period to lull Americans into complacency. A people who’ve had it good for awhile can be further lulled into distraction with television. A people who watch seven hours of TV a night can be systematically programmed to whatever attitudes, belief systems that the programmers want. And the programmers ultimately work for the banksters-because through sitting on many corporate boards they can dictate both government policy and the policies of the major corporations.
So to milk more money off of us-because we obviously had too much for them-they printed more and more dollars. Since the banksters through their minions controlled educational policy they worked to gradually dumb down each class of Americans for the past century. Dumbed-down Americans don’t understand economics, are conditioned by the Prussian model public schools to view economics and knowledge in general as boring, so they can lie about their debasing the dollar pawning it off as the consequence of “economic activity”. The Women’s Liberation movement, good for equal rights for both sexes but it was exploited by the banksters to double the tax base as inflation was ramped up.
So now both husband and wife have to work to keep up a lifestyle they could easily sustain with only one person working ten or twenty years earlier. The banksters start sending factories overseas through currency manipulation and making it government policy to deindustrialize America, so the economy itself enters a depression… but it isn’t called a depression. A depression hidden from the American People, never called that, but the factories have disappeared, it costs eight bucks just for a movie ticket, two to four dollars a gallon for gas, a Mustang costs over 30,000 dollars, houses were bigger, but not as well built and cost over ten times what their parents paid. And starting a business, buying commercial real estate and investing are milionaire’s games… or you have to spend the rest of your life paying off the mortgages.
To do ANY of the things I just wrote now takes debt-credit cards for food and fuel, loans for cars, mortages for a home. Taxes have grown from 2% during World War Two to 30% and above for income tax, Social Security is at least another 10%. There are property taxes you pay or you lose your home anyway for missing the rental payment to the beast. Sales taxes for everything, on everything just further increase the tax bite-to over 60% now in the Obama era. Oh yeah; the banksters have designated We the People as the ones who are going to pay to them the money they stole from us.
And that’s how paradise was lost.
To get it back we need our own dollar.
What’s a dollar again? A sheet of rag paper with some ink on it. What gives a dollar it’s power? The perception that it is a symbol of worth. Those sheets of green rag paper you use to trade for goods and services are backed only by a commonly held belief in their worth.
Get that? The dollar is only backed by acceptance by people that it is of worth, not because it is intrinsically worth anything beyond the time, effort and material to issue them by the trillions.
So, to get back our nation we need our own dollar-one that has worth.
What is “worth”? Worth can be perception of something’s usefulness, or the observed results of something’s worth. A car has worth because the machine can transport you far faster than you can walk, carrying far more than you could, even with a pulled cart. Seeds have value because you plant them, tend them they produce your food. A rifle and ammunition has value because it enables killing blows at hundreds of yards distance. Books have value for the knowledge they contain, as do more advanced media but they require electricity and a machine to read and display the data they contain. Coal, oil, natural gas and their processed byproducts have worth for their utility as fuel. Wood, stone, iron have worth as building materials. Silver and gold have worth due to the rarity of the material, the effort needed to refine the material from the ore and it’s use as a measurment, a measuring stick to gauge the worth of everything else.
People have worth for the work they do; farming, building, guarding, administrating, investigating, planning, healing. Now with people that worth is a variable as to their capability as well as their character. A person can do a mediocre job but if you can rely on him to do that mediocre job on a consistent basis then that is how much worth that person has. On the other hand a person who is capable of doing a good job but is for whatever reason inconsistent in when he does it or underperforms or is angling to defraud you-then that person’s worth is actually lower than the reliable mediocre person. Because you can’t rely on him. Worth is something you rely on. Worth has to be something reliable.
Barter is the trade of things of worth. Say, a jerry can of gas for a basket of food. It is simple enough if two parties have what each other wants but barter becomes a pain if one party hasn’t what the other needs-then they need to find someone else, or establish a trade wth a third party who does have what is needed. That third party may not be available.
Script is a sheet of paper promising a good or service from the person issuing it. Script is dependent on the issuer’s ability and willingness to deliver on it. It’s a promissory note. Personal money, and its shortcomings are about as bad as barter-except you can trade that script if the person issuing it is reliable. If they’re reliable and talented then that person’s script becomes something of higher value-like a Front Sight firearms academy’s grey ticket.
Silver, gold, trade items are of a intrinsic value, a worth that can be gauged. The goods and services traded for it can vary in their worth depending on needs and wants. For example, a day at an amusement park is highly valued in times of economic prosperity, but in times of economic famine people are going to be forced to find cheaper distractions from their problems.
Money then, is script issued by a social association(country)that is accepted by all, that is a universal substitute for trade goods and services. So the issue for Americans wishing to be Free is to create a dollar that has worth recognized by all without the advantage of a central, relatively trustworthy institution like a treasury issuing it as such is impossible with separate bands trying to hide and strike back against a occupying hostile power. Like the United States government.
Making a citizen dollar-a dollar truly issued by the People, for the People
A common design and value will have to be agreed upon by separate groups, individuals. Everyone will in essence be an issuing bank. This will be dependent on the issuer’s ability, trustworthiness, the value of their goods/services to each other. A citizen dollar therefore is going to rely on trust-but doesn’t the federal reserve note rely on our trust of it’s worth? Establishing trust in something someone calls a dollar will be the biggest hurdle, but fortunately it is the first hurdle. As more people leap that hurdle and trust the citizen issued dollar the momentum towards a true money will increase, and with it vital economic activity in a free(underground)market that can and will counter the invasive, centralized, debt slavery based control grid of the enemy. Eventually as the Second American Revolution progresses, towns will issue dollars, then counties, states-once Americans have taken back their national government constitutionally proscribed dollars can be issued. That will be at the end of the journey back to Freedom sadly…
We have to start the journey; how then do we back a citizen issued dollar? The answer is obvious-what do each of us have to back it up with?
Backing with work
This will be gauged by known reputation at first. If the issuer is known to be reliable, their dollars will be relied to hold their power. If the issuer is unreliable, or worse a crook then their dollars will be worse than worthless-they will drag down the value of dollars that are issued by reliable people. Such parasites must be eliminated. The worth of citizen issued dollars will also be gauged by the quality of their work, giving more value to their dollars for how needed or good their work is. Of course, the more work they can do the more dollars they can issue. The one thing each American must remember is to issue dollars for their work only as much as they can provide the service demanded for that dollar. Print more dollars than you can deliver work for, then your dollars-everyone’s dollars-will fall in value and fall hard. Something we can’t afford.
Backing with silver/gold
Silver and gold are rare, with silver rarer and more valuable than gold for people surviving due to its use as an anti-bacterial, anti-viral agent. Silver and gold will still continue to be recognized as money so the citizen dollar will have these in part as a peg to stabilize its worth. The exact worth will just have to be determined as we go along….
Backing with finished goods and commodities
Everything from wheat to wood to coal to nails, nuts, paper, fuel, and ammunition has worth of some sort and therefore can be used to back citizen dollars in lieu of work or silver and gold, or better yet, along. Issuance will be based partly on demand for ones goods and commodities and their worth.
Government opposition-enforcement
Of course the federal reserve shareholders aren’t going to stand for this one bit-individual Americans acting as their own bankers?! They’ll want to crack down, shut down the American People’s mint-except they will have to shut down hundreds of individuals acting as their own mint… then thousands… tens of thousands… Maybe millions but I suspect the citizen dollar will have become the new de facto money of America by that time, displacing the fraudulent federal reserve debt note and any multinational or global replacement.
Growing the underground economy-getting acceptance for our dollars
The key is enough reliable people surviving and thriving, attracting others and helping them do likewise for mutual benefit and profit that the ideal will take on a life of its own, with the People as self-governing enforcers. A common standard of making citizen dollars will have to be agreed upon, as well as mutual enforcement of honoring and maintaining value of said citizen dollars. Penalties must be real-one way or another, if the citizen dollars issued aren’t honored or able to be honored they become a debt that must be repaid. Somehow.
Repudiating the 14th Amendment making the national debt a matter not to be questioned.
The national debt is something no American approved or voted for. The national debt is the creation of the federal reserve shareholders who have an agenda to systematically destroy America. Since the federal reserve was born in treason and deception it is fraudulant and so are their debts. Citizen dollars and their users/issuers will dodge that issue once political gains are made-that is, actual territory taken back and held. Debts held over Americans with the federal reserve notes will be as worthless as the notes really are-citizen dollar acceptance will become a de facto jubilee of debt forgiveness for Americans.
Citizen dollars will become accepted as federal reserve notes are hyperinflated into toilet paper.
Since 1913 the federal reserve has been issuing more and more debt notes, debasing the currency with more and more notes in circulation. Since 1973 when Nixon took the federal reserve note off any backing of gold the rate of inflation has increased exponentially. This is a process that will go into a parabolic nightmare of hyperinflation, making economic activity with federal reserve notes impossible. Citizen dollars on the other hand are backed by goods and works and will retain their value in a underground… free economy that rejects bankster toilet paper. As people look for the things they need they will gravitate to the sources… the free markets where they will see much fewer citizen dollars needed for items than the wheelbarrow of federal reserve notes. Issuing their own dollars for work or goods will beat having to give up precious survival items… the hardest part will be establishing one’s reputation for their work-trust will be hard to earn but once won and maintained then one’s citizen dollars will be as good as the next Free American’s.
The economic glue, bonding of a nation is its money. For too long Americans have let their sworn enemies define what a dollar is, and it’s led to our national demise. To resurrect America, for Our America to vanquish the beast we need a common front, a common purpose and a common currency. Money is a valuable tool and prerequisite of a civilization. When a civilization’s money is debased so is the civilization, ultimately leading to its destruction as it cannot sustain economic activity. That is where America is now and it is up to us to save our own nation. Our enemies the federal reserve shareholders certainly won’t.
http://freedomguide.wordpress.com/2009/
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