No Money? No Problem!

[comodin]

Each day I hear of some new catastrophe due to the lack of money. Our local school is begging for money to keep the teachers employed, and everywhere public services are being cut to the bone and worse. I believe this is completely unnecessary, and that the solution, or a solution, is near at hand.

Just suppose that the County of Sonoma decided to issue its own money. This money would be useless outside the county, but the county itself would accept it in payment of property taxes, it would pay its own county employees in this currency (or say, half their salary in this currency, and half in U.S. currency, since not everything can be bought in Sonoma County), and it would be a condition of doing business in the county that you must accept this currency as payment for at least half of any debt.

Presto! No more money shortage! This solution presents itself whenever the national money disappears. In the Great Depression, I have read, about 120 local currencies sprung up around the country. The situation then was absurd, when you think about it: there were factories, all geared up and ready to go; millions of workers who just wanted to work in them and needed to earn a salary; millions of people who needed their products. There were crops rotting in the fields with no one to harvest them, while broke farmers, willing workers and hungry people only wanted them to be harvested. All these human needs, all these resources to fill them, but everything was paralyzed for lack of money. So they did the obvious thing and invented their own money. This simple idea works in Switzerland which has a national alternative currency called the WIR, and there are a few in this country, still going strong after many decades.

This would work on the county level, and also on the state level. The State of California has a golden opportunity to do just this. This state, unable to pay its employees with Federal dollars, has started to issue State IOUs instead, and has legislated that these IOUs are to be accepted as legal currency in settlement of debts. Although no one is calling it by the name of an alternative State currency, that is in fact what it is. But whether on a state or a county level, this idea supplies the lubricant for trade and the possibility of revival.

It is essential to break the hypnotic trance that tells us that our lives depend on an increasingly scarce national currency, called into existence by the Federal Reserve, backed by nothing, and loaned at interest to the U.S. government. I understand that the interest on this debt is so huge that not one cent of income taxes actually goes to any public project: ALL of it goes to servicing the national debt, which means, into the pockets of the few who run the Federal Reserve, which is about as "Federal" as Federal Express: a private group of bankers who control the entire system and use scarcity to hobble the economy and enrich themselves.

The solution is so simple that it seems incredible. But no less so than the truth about our present money system, which is incredibly preposterous, and similarly simple. If they can do it, we can do it!

[phooph]

There is already a move in this direction with a cashless currency that will be launched as a local loyalty card. Having been involved in the last attempt to issue a local currency, it has become clear that first the businesses must be enrolled in the concept. With the economy in a pinch, there is now more acceptance of the idea. You can learn more about this at
Front Page | Sonoma County GoLocal Coopertive

Each day I hear of some new catastrophe due to the lack of money. Our local school is begging for money to keep the teachers employed, and everywhere public services are being cut to the bone and worse. I believe this is completely unnecessary, and that the solution, or a solution, is near at hand.

Just suppose that the County of Sonoma decided to issue its own money. This money would be useless outside the county, but the county itself would accept it in payment of property taxes, it would pay its own county employees in this currency (or say, half their salary in this currency, and half in U.S. currency, since not everything can be bought in Sonoma County), and it would be a condition of doing business in the county that you must accept this currency as payment for at least half of any debt.

Presto! No more money shortage! This solution presents itself whenever the national money disappears. In the Great Depression, I have read, about 120 local currencies sprung up around the country. The situation then was absurd, when you think about it: there were factories, all geared up and ready to go; millions of workers who just wanted to work in them and needed to earn a salary; millions of people who needed their products. There were crops rotting in the fields with no one to harvest them, while broke farmers, willing workers and hungry people only wanted them to be harvested. All these human needs, all these resources to fill them, but everything was paralyzed for lack of money. So they did the obvious thing and invented their own money. This simple idea works in Switzerland which has a national alternative currency called the WIR, and there are a few in this country, still going strong after many decades.

This would work on the county level, and also on the state level. The State of California has a golden opportunity to do just this. This state, unable to pay its employees with Federal dollars, has started to issue State IOUs instead, and has legislated that these IOUs are to be accepted as legal currency in settlement of debts. Although no one is calling it by the name of an alternative State currency, that is in fact what it is. But whether on a state or a county level, this idea supplies the lubricant for trade and the possibility of revival.

It is essential to break the hypnotic trance that tells us that our lives depend on an increasingly scarce national currency, called into existence by the Federal Reserve, backed by nothing, and loaned at interest to the U.S. government. I understand that the interest on this debt is so huge that not one cent of income taxes actually goes to any public project: ALL of it goes to servicing the national debt, which means, into the pockets of the few who run the Federal Reserve, which is about as "Federal" as Federal Express: a private group of bankers who control the entire system and use scarcity to hobble the economy and enrich themselves.

The solution is so simple that it seems incredible. But no less so than the truth about our present money system, which is incredibly preposterous, and similarly simple. If they can do it, we can do it!

[vitalawson]

Most of the Summer 2009 issue of YES! Magazine (Issue 50; The New Economy) deals with various alternative currencies. Lots of great discussion there on the whole concept. Check it out!

Vita

Each day I hear of some new catastrophe due to the lack of money. Our local school is begging for money to keep the teachers employed, and everywhere public services are being cut to the bone and worse. I believe this is completely unnecessary, and that the solution, or a solution, is near at hand.

Just suppose that the County of Sonoma decided to issue its own money. This money would be useless outside the county, but the county itself would accept it in payment of property taxes, it would pay its own county employees in this currency (or say, half their salary in this currency, and half in U.S. currency, since not everything can be bought in Sonoma County), and it would be a condition of doing business in the county that you must accept this currency as payment for at least half of any debt.

Presto! No more money shortage! This solution presents itself whenever the national money disappears. In the Great Depression, I have read, about 120 local currencies sprung up around the country. The situation then was absurd, when you think about it: there were factories, all geared up and ready to go; millions of workers who just wanted to work in them and needed to earn a salary; millions of people who needed their products. There were crops rotting in the fields with no one to harvest them, while broke farmers, willing workers and hungry people only wanted them to be harvested. All these human needs, all these resources to fill them, but everything was paralyzed for lack of money. So they did the obvious thing and invented their own money. This simple idea works in Switzerland which has a national alternative currency called the WIR, and there are a few in this country, still going strong after many decades.

This would work on the county level, and also on the state level. The State of California has a golden opportunity to do just this. This state, unable to pay its employees with Federal dollars, has started to issue State IOUs instead, and has legislated that these IOUs are to be accepted as legal currency in settlement of debts. Although no one is calling it by the name of an alternative State currency, that is in fact what it is. But whether on a state or a county level, this idea supplies the lubricant for trade and the possibility of revival.

It is essential to break the hypnotic trance that tells us that our lives depend on an increasingly scarce national currency, called into existence by the Federal Reserve, backed by nothing, and loaned at interest to the U.S. government. I understand that the interest on this debt is so huge that not one cent of income taxes actually goes to any public project: ALL of it goes to servicing the national debt, which means, into the pockets of the few who run the Federal Reserve, which is about as "Federal" as Federal Express: a private group of bankers who control the entire system and use scarcity to hobble the economy and enrich themselves.

The solution is so simple that it seems incredible. But no less so than the truth about our present money system, which is incredibly preposterous, and similarly simple. If they can do it, we can do it!

[gnc sebastopol]

I am shocked to see that GoLocal is still using this study. I spoke to Jay Beckwith at SC go local 6 months ago and he agreed, after doing some research,that the study was without merit.

I agree that shopping local is a great idea, but the study is flawed and misleading on several levels

1) the distinction is made between locally owned and corporate chains. The problem with that over simplification is that most chains stores in small towns are locally owned franchises.

2) the data is pulled from a 2004 study of a town in Chicago using 10 local stores and 10 chain stores. This information is 5 years old, half a country away and is a very small sample.

3) the study assumes that if the chain stores go away 1,295 jobs will magically appear. Where will these jobs come from? Are there hundreds of people waiting in the wings with the money, ingenuity , and time to open new businesses? It is an unrealistic assumption.

We need to work together to help the community and we don't need to create an enemy to do that.

thank you, Kathleen Stroh

There is already a move in this direction with a cashless currency that will be launched as a local loyalty card. Having been involved in the last attempt to issue a local currency, it has become clear that first the businesses must be enrolled in the concept. With the economy in a pinch, there is now more acceptance of the idea. You can learn more about this at
Front Page | Sonoma County GoLocal Coopertive

[comodin]

I doubt that all the chain stores and out-of-county corporations that do business in this county would close down and refuse to trade here, just because they had to accept at least 50% of their payments in local currency. But suppose they did. What could be done for all the unemployed workers from those companies?

Well, back in the Great Depression, J.M.Keynes sardonically suggested that if no more imaginative idea were proposed, the government could fill old cans with discarded banknotes, toss them into disused mine shafts, follow them with tons of rubble, and then let entreprenneurs pay crews of previously unemployed men to dig them out. This idiotic activity would have the astonishing effect of reviving the economy, because all the diggers would spend their wages, and so forth. Keynes naturally assumed that there would be no problem thinking of more intelligent and productive ways of occupying people. In actuality the government did even worse—"military Keynesianism," which pays people not to do merely pointless things, but do do horribly, hopelessly, sociopathic and environmentally destructive things. And this is a major factor in economic activity of the U.S., and of the world today.

This is conventionally regarded as fiscal sanity, and as regards the re-circulation of money, it does work (as distinct from the predictable end stage of this system, which is perpetual war, and is totally insane). So— get ready— if no one can think of any constructive work that needs to be done, why not simply put the currency into existence by just giving it to people, in some adequate and equal amount, then let them spend it as they will? This could surely not be worse, and surely must be better, than paying out money in exchange for making bombs and the planes to drop them! But there are productive things that need to be done, and they may well be more productive than whatever those laid-off workers used to do.

Time to change the way we look at things. When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

[phooph]

The Go Local rewards system would be voluntary and limited to businesses that are locally owned. It is essentially a means for helping local businesses compete against big box store chains that because of their size get big price breaks when purchasing in large quantities and can out compete local businesses on price. This ability often puts small, local operations out of business leaving communities at the mercy of the big box stores which tend to be poor on service (ever deal with a bad product from Best Buy?) and pay low wages with poor to no benefits (Costco exempted). These stores tend not to be operating on the franchise concept or local ownership. There is no intent to put them out of business but to help smaller competitors stay in business and to recirculate more value in the county as opposed to sending the bulk of it off to a corporate headquarters somewhere else.

The San Francisco study aside, other studies have shown the BBSs to be money mining operations that suck value out of the local economy. Many a local government has given tax breaks to outside corporations to attract them into the area only to find that other businesses die off and leave them burdened with increased social service costs. Some have fought back by passing laws limiting store size and requiring living wages and health benefits. Walmart as chief culprit in this area is now pushing for a national health insurance program to free it from this burden.

Big Stores That Destroy Local Businesses Grow Not Only by Market Forces But By Public Policies

There is a PDF titled The Big Box Swindle that explains how it works.

I am shocked to see that GoLocal is still using this study. I spoke to Jay Beckwith at SC go local 6 months ago and he agreed, after doing some research,that the study was without merit.

I agree that shopping local is a great idea, but the study is flawed and misleading on several levels

1) the distinction is made between locally owned and corporate chains. The problem with that over simplification is that most chains stores in small towns are locally owned franchises.

2) the data is pulled from a 2004 study of a town in Chicago using 10 local stores and 10 chain stores. This information is 5 years old, half a country away and is a very small sample.

3) the study assumes that if the chain stores go away 1,295 jobs will magically appear. Where will these jobs come from? Are there hundreds of people waiting in the wings with the money, ingenuity , and time to open new businesses? It is an unrealistic assumption.

We need to work together to help the community and we don't need to create an enemy to do that.

thank you, Kathleen Stroh

[gnc sebastopol]

The Go Local rewards system would be voluntary and limited to businesses that are locally owned. It is essentially a means for helping local businesses
*great idea, why don't your end the sentence there?
compete against big box store chains
*Who are you talking about? How big is too big?
that because of their size get big price breaks when purchasing in large quantities and can out compete local businesses on price.
*this is only part of the picture, it really about perceived value which includes selection, service and convenience.
This ability often puts small, local operations out of business leaving communities at the mercy of the big box stores which tend to be poor on service (ever deal with a bad product from Best Buy?) and pay low wages with poor to no benefits (Costco exempted).
*this assumes all independent businesses provide excellent service and pay high wages and have employee benefits.
These stores tend not to be operating on the franchise concept or local ownership. There is no intent to put them out of business
*again, I would like to know who 'these stores' are. When articles say chain stores hurt the communtiy, it hurts my business,
but to help smaller competitors stay in business and to recirculate more value in the county as opposed to sending the bulk of it off to a corporate headquarters somewhere else.

The San Francisco study aside, other studies have shown the BBSs to be money mining operations that suck value out of the local economy.
*these studies often start with data about Wal Mart and then by the end go back to the broad, unsupported claim that all chains are bad. If there are other good studies, why do I keep seeing the San Fransisco study quoted?
Many a local government has given tax breaks to outside corporations to attract them into the area only to find that other businesses die off and leave them burdened with increased social service costs. Some have fought back by passing laws limiting store size and requiring living wages and health benefits. Walmart as chief culprit in this area is now pushing for a national health insurance program to free it from this burden.
*Wal mart is evil

Big Stores That Destroy Local Businesses Grow Not Only by Market Forces But By Public Policies
*Wal Mart is evil

There is a PDF titled The Big Box Swindle that explains how it works.

*there is so much hype and drama here, it is hard for me to find the facts.

My personal experience from being in retail for 25 years is that most indpendent stores fail on their own. I have heard the stories of wal mart killing the downtowns (see wal mart is evil), but look at the stores that have closed in Sebastopol over the last year, it was not becauses of a bbs. I think Go Local would better serve the community by forgetting about price and bbs, and instead focus on improving the local businesses, whether it be financial planning, marketing, merchandising, employee programs. Let's build up, competing on price should be the last act of desperation (yes, we are still 20%-59% off for July)
thanks! Kathleen