JCT: CNN has done a report you can see at
By Jen Haley CNN

JH: Steve Carlotta's family-owned camera store is struggling
along with other mom and pop stores. But he's found a way to
compete with Internet stores and big-box chains. Carlotta's store
accepts BerkShares -- a local currency in Great Barrington,
Massachusetts. He credits it with helping keep local customers
coming back to his store. And as U.S. dollars and credit vanish
in this economic crisis, more communities are looking into
printing their own currencies.

JCT: And when all these community currency lifeboats adopt the
Time Standard of Money and unite to intertrade, it's game over
the the usury banks.

JH: This concept isn't new. During the Great Depression dozens of
complementary currencies flourished as thousands of banks failed.
Today, it's estimated there are at least 2,500 complementary
currency systems around the world, says Bernard Lietaer, a co-
founder of the Euro and a local currency proponent.

Watch how one town uses their own currency >
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/22/printing.own.currency/#cnnSTCVide\
o

JH: In the United States, there are alternative currency systems
in California, Wisconsin, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan and
Massachusetts.

BerkShares are a form of local currency developed in the
Berkshire region of Massachusetts two years ago. About 350
merchants accept BerkShares in addition to U.S. currency. People
pay 95 federal cents to get one BerkShare or $95 for 100
BerkShares.

Complementary currencies are colorful slips of paper designed
with images of local scenes or landmarks. People can use this
currency to purchase local goods and services. It's designed to
encourage locals to spend money within their own area.

Paul Glover, the founder of the Ithaca Hours complementary
currency for use in Ithaca, New York, has been bombarded with
requests to help set up local currencies around the country. "As
the economy has fallen apart, my phone has been ringing off the
hook," Glover says from his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Printing and distributing local currency isn't illegal. But there
are rules, says Lewis Solomon, a law professor at George
Washington University. First, the currency can only be paper; no
coins are allowed. And the currency can't resemble a dollar.
JCT: That's what's so stupid about the Liberty Dollar gang. Had
they called it a Silver Hour worth $10 American Greendollars,
they'd have had no problem. But making it look like the real
thing just brought down the feds and was aimed at discrediting
the community currency movement to which it has been linked.

Finally, any income received in local currency must be taxed as
if it were federal dollars.

JCT: Not if it's in Time in a non-professional capacity. I've
been crowing about those U.S. States that successfully fought to
get Timedollars exempted on the reasoning that if the old lady
cuts his hair and he mows her lawn, they won't be bothering the
government to help get it done. So is is not true that
Timedollars traded are taxable income for poor people. Of course,
if it's your business, then sure, pay your tax. The barter money
you used instead of your federal cash freed up that federal cash
so you can use part of it to pay your income tax. Community
currency or barter isn't an income tax evasion scheme, it's an
interest-evasion scheme.

JH: While local currency may not be helpful outside a town's
limits,

JCT: Of course, the local currency can be trusted outside the
town limits. Taking a neighbor town's IOU beats not making the
deal at all. Besides, their Hours will be accepted in timebanks
all over the world. In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe
with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours. I sent an
email IOU but I'm sure they'd have loved a paper one too. Try it
out. Write to some European timebank to see if they'll put you up
for 5 Hours a night like they did me and I'll be they all take
your beautiful notes.

JH: residents say they use the money as a way of supporting their
local community. Stephen Burke, the current director of Ithaca
Hours, accepts the currency at his music store. He spends his
Hours locally, too.

Some like to know they're helping a small business stay in
business and compete with big chains that may not care about the
community.

JCT: You have to admit, if hundreds of businesses can take local
currency which they can use to pay their local employees, the big
corporations have to be pretty stupid not to also. But it's
inevitable that as the volume of stable time-based pool of
purchasing power grows, they'll have to take farmers IOUs for
grain like the biggies had to in Argentina or do no business and
perish.

JH: "Recently people have begun to understand the value of
spending money locally," Burke says. And businesses, in turn, use
local currency as a way to promote their connection to the
community and build loyalty. The 5 percent discount with
BerkShares probably doesn't hurt either.

JCT: But it limits the volume of tokens not to the volume of work
output possible but the volume of federal cash to buy in. A fatal
weakness, though easily corrected by making interest-free loans
based on time as well as cash.

JH: Susan Witt, the co-founder of BerkShares, has been consulting
with officials from Newark, New Jersey, and nonprofit groups in
New Orleans, Louisiana, and Alaska on how to start local
currencies. "The trouble in our global financial system has
people very concerned," says Witt. "They don't know how to fix
it. It seems out of their control. The concept of a citizen group
taking responsibility for its own regional economy and finding a
way to issue a medium for exchange in its own area is such a
powerful image."

JCT: Now imagine being able to intertrade your Hours all around
the world using an internet UNILETS to record exchanges. See the
Big Picture.

JH: Gwen Colgrove, a retired teacher in Lehigh Valley,
Pennsylvania, is trying to garner support for a local currency in
her area. "I think the time is critical with the financial
collapse," she says. However, there are challenges. Some
community members dismiss the idea of a local currency, arguing
that it won't have much of an impact in a global economy. The
local currency Colgrove is trying to launch is still only in the
beginning stages. But thanks to the economy, residents are more
enthusiastic about creating their own medium of exchange.

JCT: Such a small life-boat won't have much of an impact, he
says. Like the little time-creditos weren't having much of an
impact in Argentina until the banks closed their doors and
everyone had to jump into the ready and waiting lifeboat
databases. In a world full of negatives, what kind of idiot can
be pessimistic about the good news of a working currency system.
Even if the database is still small and waiting for the losers to
start jumping ship.

JH: "If the economy were booming, people wouldn't be so
interested," she says.

JCT: Right. So what? Is the economy booming? Pretty stupid
objection.

JH: But creating a local currency isn't easy. First, there are
the start-up costs.

JCT: Everyone logging on transfer their credits around has high
start up costs? Sure printing a counterfeit-proof note is useful
but large transactions can be traded online and only small
transactions with small-denomination notes. Better yet if the
government starts its own currency, then the power of the state
should take care of any counterfeiters. Does anyone think that
Hugo Chavez's community currencies are going to have any
problems? Has Canadian Tire Money had any problems?

JH: Witt's group spent $250,000 in grant money to create the
BerkShares. There are costs associated with designing a currency,
printing costs, the costs of educating residents and businesses.
And maintaining the whole program is expensive. Witt estimates
Newark could spend about $1 million in implementing a local
currency. And then there's the labor.

"You have to have someone at the helm. Someone who is paid." says
Glover. "A lot of communities start out with dedicated people.
They get it going, but because they are all volunteers, the
reality of having created a financial institution sinks in. And
eventually, they just get exhausted."

Just printing the right amount of local currency is difficult. If
you print too much currency, there's the possibility of
inflation.

JCT: If your casino has too many chips, there's the possibility
of issuing more than the collateral pledged them? You can tell
this is an economist talking and it's sad to see a community
currency advocate not realize that an Hour is always going to
worth 60 minutes.

JH: If you print too little, there are no economic advantages.

JCT: Some but few economic advantages if you print too little,
proven by Ithaca who only trust their members for 4 Hours of
labor, $40 Greendollars, hardly enough to permit much action.
Sabotage? Silliness? I'd trust anyone for a Month of Labor.

JH: Glover admits he started out idealistically. "When I started
Ithaca Hours, I thought I was releasing money like doves of peace
that would fly around and land on people's shoulders," he says.

Some economists are skeptical that complementary currencies will
ever have much impact.

JCT: The guys who think interest fights inflation don't see the
big picture despite all the "Community currencies on the rise"
articles we're seeing all around the world.

JH: "They usually don't hold up too well, or too long," says Bert
Ely, a banking analyst. "It's something that applies only in
simple and closed situations. It lacks the flexibility and
geographic breadth that currency has."

JCT: It used to until I started trading my Hours on the Internet
10 years ago. It's had global breadth for a decade. That's why
the UN UNILETS Resolution is expands the LETS Local Employment-
Trading System to the United Nations International & Local
Employment-Trading System. Energy Trading System applies too. So
both these are totally baseless concerns by the wilfully blinded.

JH: While there is a lot of idealism out there, local currencies
usually break down, Ely says.

JCT: I have never heard of an Hour owed that could not be
collected from the original debtor or kin. Sure, the accounts may
still in limbo but they never die. A new trade can always
continue things going again.

JH: And since the early 1990s, there have been about a dozen
local currencies that have failed in the United States.

JCT: But everyone of those accounts will someday be rolled to the
world-wide UNILETS and if you owed and stiffed your LETS, you'll
acknowledge your commitment when you join world-wide. So there's
no escaping the time owed no matter how much people would like to
say those databases of help owed no longer exist.

JH: To be sure, local currencies are a small part of the economic
activity in a region. Witt estimates about $2 million in
BerkShares that have circulated since the bills were first
printed. She says currently there is about a 30 percent usage
rate among residents.

JCT: Like they keep saying, as the government's chips disappear,
they'll take local chips to participate in the economy rather
than insist on getting cash when there is no cash.

JH: Jon Zaglin, the director of the Humboldt complementary
currency project in California, says there's about $130,000 in
Humboldt currency that has been in circulation since 2005. But
advocates say that it's not the scale of the program that makes
it important. It's about the connections that form around it.

"The bigger effect of BerkShares is the conversations it's
elicited," Witt says. "It's a way to network and have healthy
conversations about money," Burke says. "Ithaca Hours acts as
money, but there is something beyond that." "It creates
camaraderie," he says. "When someone comes into my store... if
they pay with a check or a credit card, we don't talk. But when
someone uses Ithaca Hours, you start a conversation."
And that keeps customers coming back.

JCT: What great news. Community currencies have been in the news
so much in the past couple of months, I've logged many hundreds!
And sent them all the message that Adopting the Time Standard of
Money hastens the installation of the world-wide lifeboat and the
implosion of the growing debt slave ship.