In Olympia, WA where I live by joining up with the local currency system you get four Sound Hours = $40. One sound hour = $10). There are many services and stores that accept sound hours as either partial or full payment for goods and services. For example, at the local food coop, you can pay up to half of your bill in sound hours, the rest must be paid in dollars. Some services except Sound hours, eg. gardening, baby sitting, etc. These are some questions people have asked me about local currencies and i am interested in comments on them by other members of Pen-L. 1) To what extent do local currencies increase employment, income, economic activity within the community where they are used? 2) Do they and can they spur local business activity by decreasing economic leakages out of the community. 3) Under what circumastances are local currencies likely to be inflationary; or have no overall macroeconomic impact but just substitute for dolllars? 4) Can they be effective in communities with high unemployment rates in reducing unemployment, raising incomes of low income members of the community? 5) What is key in organizing local currencies sothat they further income equality, employment, local production? Thanks, Peter Bohmer Jim Devine wrote: > from yesterday's SLATE: > > >The LA TIMES's "Column One" describes the blooming of a little-known > economic phenomenon cropping up here and there in small communities > threatened by the outflow of local cash to say, big retail chain stores in > the nearby city: the creation of local currencies, good only in town. There > are now, says the paper, 65 such local denominations, like the Ithaca (New > York) HOUR (the original--created nine years ago), the Berkeley BREAD, and > Kansas City's (Missouri or Kansas? The paper doesn't say) Barter Bucks. > Surprisingly, local currency is clearly legal. U.S. law prohibits local > governments issuing money, but not nonprofit collectives. < > > so I should set up a nonprofit collective and start printing? > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & > http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
