Continued from here.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!
Does closing and moving this discussion make the info in the closed thread unavailable to the average user?
Here is the earlier part of this conversation:
http://www.fluwikie2.com/pmwiki.php?n=Forum.EmergencyCommunityCurrencies
anonymous – at 07:21,
No, you can still open a closed thread for reading. You just cannot port to the thread any longer.
BB,
Follow this link to Birdshot
http://homepage.mac.com/forever.net/About/BIRDSHOT.html
and there you will find a link to a pdf entitled “A Pictorial History of Community Currency Systems”, which includes sample currencies. The author, Stephen Demeulenaere, is a contributor to this global initiative. Every community is free to design it’s own currency or borrow a design. Birdshot recommends that these local currencies be similar but not identical to the national currency so that the monies seem familiar but do not appear to be attemps at counterfeiting.
The Birdshot page is also linked from the international Community Currency Library at
http://www.complementarycurrency.org/materials.php?s_documentType=16
where you will find many additional resources.
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Reflecting on your comments and questions, and the discussions of other commuity-minded efforts here and in other forums, it seems to me that few individuals (here or elsewhere) are motivated to act beyond personal pandemic preparedness, while at the same time most seem open to a top-down approach, i.e. government or ngo directed interventions at the community scale. Perhaps this is why the Central Banks succeeded during the Great Depression in protecting their monopoly on money, even though it cost many unnecessary years of suffering and millions of lives. Perhaps the hurdle is accomplishing a general awareness of that cost among emergency managers so that they can speak for this strategy. If so, then several million dollars of funding might make the difference - enough to finance the implementation of several thousand community currency systems through a centralized resource. Well, anything is possible…meanwhile, I’ll continue to develop the online resource.
Today we added a German translation of the IDRC poster, donated by Philip Beard, a professional translator who is contributing to the alternative economics movement. It’s posted at my personal website and will be linked from Birdshot shortly. So, how far are we from millions?:)
Kevin Parcell http://homepage.mac.com/forever.net
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This thread is being “recycled” - used as input for Forum.WorkingInAPandemic?. There will be new jobs sprouting like fungi. One issue will be How do we pay each other? So, birdshot to the rescue, maybe? If that’s so, then communities do need to have birdshot or similar tools in their pandemic preparedness box.
So, for some cross-fertilisation here, maybe people who are interested in “working in a pandemic” can suggest “birdshot” as part of the strategy to those who can link people to jobs and to training and to people in need.
If this works in a non-pandemic setting, then it can be “inflated” (“scaled up”). Who could try it soon?
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http://www.birdshot.cc is growing as it should. Some stuff translated into French and German.
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Now that some communities are starting to talk as communities then maybe this would have a chance to be looked at?
Thanks, Lugon. We all hope and pray that the danger presented by H5N1 not only wakes the world up to the need to recreate the local marketplaces that the global marketplace has displaced, but that it does that before the next global disaster.
Our site, www.birdshot.cc, is about building communities that are insulated from global disaster by autonomous local marketplaces. History shows that local currency systems are the difference between hunger and health during hard times. We introduced many in the disaster-relief community to the power of local currencies with a presentation at the UN sponsored International Disaster Reduction Conference in Davos, Switzerland, this summer, and we’re moving forward with funding requests for documenting demonstration projects in disaster-stricken communities.
Bonus values are the killer ap for local currency, creating a demand that can build and sustain a local marketplace. For example, a community development project might focus on creating local water resources, and then sell that water offering the bonus of a significant discount when purchased with the scrip they issue. Their scrip is lent for agricultural development, with no interest on loan payments with scrip. The demand for the local currency by consumers and producers builds a local marketplace that is able to bring food and water to the community, even when the global marketplace goes missing.
There’s a growing number of people who are aware that it is necessary to advance an emergency local currency initiative because complementary local and global marketplaces are the only solution for all of the world’s communities to the worst of the natural and manmade disasters that lie ahead, as well as the most powerful way to accomplish a sustainable prosperity that feeds the hungry. This note is posted here to reach interested people with this vital information and to invite comments and questions.
bump is all i can say for now - how do we go practical about this? just do it? anyone tried already? what are the logistics? can someone produce the bills centrally so we may just buy them?
ok, ok, i’ll go to http://www.birdshot.cc - thanks!
thanks for questions, lugon
Yes, you’ll find links to answers at that site, including many examples of local currency being used today and past. I appreciate the opportunity to share this info here.
I’m specially interested in this PDF file. I’ll copy or summarise the essentials so we may get going. Thanks, Kevin!
Has anyone here actually tried suggesting this to their local places? Goju? Many others?
things look doable - maybe a 3 hour meeting would give any community a draft
anyone tried it? please report!
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Just added a link at the end of http://www.fluwikie.com/pmwiki.php?n=Consequences.PandemicPreparednessGuides
Hope this will give it some visibility!
I’ve also emailed Dr Woodson in order to see if he would add this as a community tool under his “failsafe plan” at http://www.birdflumanual.com/articles/failsafePlanGov.asp
I agree with Dr Woodson that what government authorities are referring to as “worst-case scenarios”, are, in fact, the worst for which those government authorities suppose they might have an effective response, but do not represent the actual potential threat. Local currency systems address the true worst-case scenario, in which the global marketplace fails to deliver essential commodities for years. Moreover, local currency systems can provide a permanent solution for hunger, and also a foundation for sustainable prosperity, with or without global disaster.
In many regions, establishing a working local marketplace using local currency could easily require months or even years, so the shortsightedness of governments now could cost many millions of lives later if a natural or manmade disaster cripples the marketplace. However, the decentralization of power implied by such economic reform has a history of disfavor with governments, and so it is probably a mistake to expect state leadership on this front. Non-government organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, and international organizations, such as the UN, might provide that leadership. My experience is that such groups are vigorously seeking solutions, but the power of local currency systems has been largely lost to living memory, and so this solution remains almost invisible. Fortunately, the recent Argentinean economic crisis led to the spontaneous appearance of a national local-currency movement there, and so there is a current example of the power of this approach…
All that being said - and I could go on and on :) - these online forums are providing an effective way to network ideas, and so may eventually be part of the the solution for communities, even as they are good survivalist tools today. For my part, I continue to look for opportunities to share this knowledge and so I very much appreciate fluwikie.
Thanks and BUMP!
BerkShares are a local currency designed for use in the Southern Berkshire region of Massachusetts with issue by BerkShares, Inc., a non-profit organization working in collaboration with the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, participating local banks, local businesses, and local non-profit organizations.
The purpose of a local currency is to function on a local scale the same way that national currencies have functioned on a national scale—building the local economy by maximizing circulation of trade within a defined region. Widely used in the early 1900s, local currencies are again being recognized as a tool for sustainable economic development. The currency distinguishes the local businesses that accept the currency from those that do not, building stronger relationships and a greater affinity between the business community and the citizens of a particular place.
The people who choose to use the currency make a conscious commitment to buy local first. They are taking personal responsibility for the health and well-being of their community by laying the foundation of a truly vibrant, thriving local economy.
BerkShares will not, and are not intended to, replace federal currency. Their use will help strengthen the regional economy, favoring locally owned enterprises, local manufacturing, and local jobs, and reducing the region’s dependence on an unpredictable global economy.
bump!
sure sounds like we’ll need these- there could be times when the town couldn’t pay but needs work done, and citizens didn’t have cash paychecks to pay property taxes with, sort of thing. As well as people with skills who would need to barter with each other, just not need each others services at the same times.
that’s exactly my understanding! now - how do we move forward?
(ya don’t mean, I have to try emailing the finance board about pandemic preparedness again, right?)(Worse- I have to call or show up a their finance meeting, when they haven’t got the What-a-bad-pandemic-year-is/ current-H5N1-cfr-rate memo yet?)
(The local banks - or credit unions- or chamber of commerces? Would they live to brainstorm outside their bureaucratic boxes?)
“like” to know; they don’t “live to” brainstorm outside the box…I can’t type (Now have to go get ready for trick-or-treaters to show up)
Hard to get places to go to the effort of developing community currency if they can’t imagine/acknowledge a need for it…
Hard to get places to go to the effort of developing community currency if they can’t imagine/acknowledge a need for it …
They may want to develop community currencies in order to activate local transfer of goods and services. Interestingly, money is not an end in itself, but a tool to help us in transfer of goods and services. Maybe.
Links:
Benefits:
Maybe we need to make it really easy to create such a currency.
Or maybe local currencies can be created globally: someone defines and prints the bills, personalised to specific locations.
Maybe someone can build a business on top of this?
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005224.html is a recent review of community currencies.