Hi all,
For those of you not in australia we currently have a government that is
attempting to introduce a goods and servies tax (similar to VAT in
britian and Sales tax in the states). There is obviosuly some reservations
to this among people in australia, particularly give the government has
made such a shocking balls-up of the whole thing, the new tax system being
only marginally simpler than high-energy nuclear physics.
So anyway onto the point of this message. There are a number of non-cash
economies locally in australia that work in a small community on a
mediated barter system. Mediated bater being, i do work for you and get
X units of currency credited to my account and then i take my X units and
purchase something from another participant, but of course no actual legal
tender changes hands, you get the idea.
Now an economy like this would seem to be safe from the GST in oz becasue
there is no sales actually happening.
So I got to thinking that a system like this might work well,
particularly over the internet with some sort of digitally signed money,
that is both trust worthy and anonymous.
It leaves less of a paper trail and you can run the "economy" over a
larger area. The system would be a sort of cashless buyers group ?
Does this sound like a feasible or implementable idea ?? Any suggestions
for furthur reading material so that i could get a better grasp of the
topic ?? Shoot me down in flames for not having a clue perhaps ??
Jason
