JCT: From the South Bend Tribune, discussion on the new Michiana
Money community currency project:

http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090504/News01/90504\
0251/-1/XML

>May 05, 2009
>SouthBendTribune.com
>Name of new local currency to be announced Friday
>Tribune Staff Report

SOUTH BEND - Organizers with the Michiana Community Currency
project plan to announce the name of the new local currency at a
press conference at 2 p.m. Friday at Fiddler's Hearth downtown.
Area residents are encouraged to vote on several possible names
via the Internet or by phone through Wednesday. Open voting began
April 27.
Choices include:
BGs (Bridges and Growers),
Bits,
Bridges,
Growers,
MACs (Michiana Area Currency),
Money,
RV (Real Value, also a nod to the local production of
recreational vehicles),
Sprouts SEEDS (Social Empowerment & Equity Dollars),
SHARES (Social Harvest Resource Exchange),
Talents,
WITTs (We're In This Together).
Online voting can be done by visiting the Web site at
www.michianacurrency.org.
Votes also may be cast by sending an e-mail to:
michianacurrency@... or by calling (574) 807-1349.

"We are very gratified by the response we've received thus far,"
said Karl Hardy, an organizer with Michiana Community Currency.
"We want everyone to have the opportunity to make their opinions
known about what the new currency should be named."
Local currencies are designed to foster local trade, build
community or "social capital," and enhance economic opportunities
for the community's marginalized persons, according to the news
release.
Michiana Community Currency will only be able to be spent locally
and will complement the federal dollar, organizers say.
They'll will be signing up businesses and individuals to
participate in the local currency exchange network over the
coming weeks and months with a planned launch of the currency in
the fall.
---

JCT: There's always someone who doesn't want to be set free:

>The Justice
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 11:17 am
>Subject: Re: Name of new local currency

TJ: We don't need any more Fiat Currency in this world. Why not
back it by something tangable like Gold so that it has some true
value, and to protect it from inflation and devaluation should
you decide to turn on the printing press?

JCT: Most people have just soooooo much gold.

TJ: Are you pegging this to the dollar? What will you do when the
inflation takes its toll on the USD? Will you be forced to
devalue and inflate your "local currency"?

JCT: If they peg it to the Hour, 60 minutes owed is always 60
minutes.

TJ: Why not just promote buying local? Simply encourage people to
go to the farmers market, to stay away from Walmart, avoid
franchises and buy from small business owners in the community?
This could be done through coupons alone.

JCT: Yeah, encouraging people to skip the cheap box stores and
shop locally has worked so well so far.

TJ: I'm very skeptical. Are you from South Bend?

JCT: Luckily, community currencies are only of use to those who
use them and don't have to be used by the skeptical until they're
broke enough to appreciate any currency to do business with
rather than no currency like in the last Great Depression.
---

> a smith
> Posted: May 04 2009 12:51 pm

AS: I will have to agree, this is silly. Why waste time, energy
and real money to print fake money.

JCT: Why waste time using fake chips when you play poker when you
can use nothing and have to settle up after every pot?

AS: I don't want fake money as change from a business in the area
for my real US currency I can use anywhere.

JCT: Now that's he's labelled something bad, it's obvious he'd
rather stay broke and do nothing than use community poker chips.

AS: I want a list of businesses using this so I can avoid them.

JCT: Maybe the stores should make a lost of the guys who dissed
the financial salvation service and not let them join as too
stupid to be trusted with "fake money." Har har har.
---

>DORIS VANARSDALE
>Posted: May 04 2009 1:58 pm

DV: I dont understand?? Why change the name and what kind of
currency.?

JCT: Imagine you babysit for a neighbor and she pays you with 4-
Hour IOU. When you need dentistry, you look in the local currency
directory and find a doctor who is charging 4 Hours per hour and
takes your 4-Hour IOU. You've bartered for your dentistry with
your time. Think of a local currency as keeping track of your
barter score in units of time linked to currency.
In the US, an Hour is worth $10, in Canada $12 Greendollars, in
UK 6 Greenpounds, in France 60 Greenfranks, in Germany 20
Greenmarks. In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an
IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
---

>cartoonmechanic
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 2:04 pm

CM: Just another chance for a low life to print fake money and
scam local businesses and towns people.

JCT: And just another guy who doesn't get into the game because
the trust the guy chosen to bank the game's chips which everyone
can watch.

CM: And guess who's going to foot the bill on that? The local
taxpayers.

JCT: I didn't hear about being able to pay your taxes with local
currency but that's the Holy Grail when everyone in town will
take it. The mayor could borrow what he needs from the Timebank,
spend it into circulation for municipal projects, tax it back at
the end of the year with the tax matching the people service we
got and no debt service to the bank.
---

>Justin Bowen
>Date: May 04 2009 3:01 pm

JB: Why waste time, energy and real money to print fake money.

JCT: You'd be right if we knew what fake money is other than a
non-sensical definition of a useful mechanism. For the record,
merely replacing all federal cash in circulation results in what
I call the Sparta effect. When visiting, your gold was deposited
in the Sparta city bank for clay tokens used while in town and
cashed out upon leaving. Sparta got the interest while trading
went on with the clay chips. If all bought stamps for cash, the
state would get the interest while trading would go on with the
stamp tokens.

JCT: This is the main benefit of a cash-buy-in currency like
Berkshares. But not including people with no cash to buy in with
is its main defect. People should be able to buy in with cash or
with time and that problem is solved.

JB: I don't want fake money as change from a business in the area
for my real US currency I can use anywhere.

JCT: And no doubt, as less and less stores in your area have any
real US currency to pay you with that you can use anywhere,
you'll have more and more stores surviving by offering you the
only change they have which you won't take.

JB: New Michiana currency: printed money whose value is likely to
disappear with the passage of time. US dollar: printed money
whose value is likely to disappear with the passage of time.
What's the difference?

JCT: Not if it's linked to the Time Standard of Money like all
community currencies. What? Will an Hour owed by your neighbor
suddenly only get you 50 minutes? Time-based currency can't
change value.

JB: The Justice is correct. We don't need more fiat currency.

JCT: This isn't fiat currency, it's commodity-backed currency
where the commodity is human time, not only gold and houses.

JB: The Liberty Dollar was a huge step in the right direction
until the federal government came in and trampled all over the
rights of private citizens.

JCT: The Liberty Dollar was a flawed concept whose only
beneficiaries are the gold bullion brokers. How much gold do you
have to pledge to get money? Your neighbors? How much free time
do you have to pledge to get money? Your neighbors? And no one's
trampling on their rights when all they had to do was not make
their chips look like the government's chips. They chose to incur
the government wrath, probably to give the community currency
movement a bad name.

JB: The Michiana Community Currency organization would have been
better off had it used some sort of commodity as the basis for
its currency.

JCT: They can't help but link their money to the minimum wage.

JB: It doesn't necessarily need to be gold or silver, but it
should be a commodity whose value is somewhat stable over time.

JCT: And the very best numeraire for money is human time.
---

>Brian Lewis
>Posted: May 04 2009 3:04 pm

BL: Call it the F.S. As in Flipping Stupid. There is only one
reason for this currency. It is a way to get your real dollars
out of your wallets and into the local currency printers hands.

JCT: Again, the criticism is only incurred by the cash buy-in
that let's someone like this suspect scam. Any demand for cash
would be called a scam. And making your currency "buy-only"
invites this kind of baseless, though inevitable, skepticism.
What if you could join one of the LETS systems catering to the
masses who don't have any cash or gold? WHat if you can buy-in
with an IOU for 100 hours of labor? And everyone else? We all
chip in a buck or two to print up some time-based IOU notes, or
we all print and sign our own at our home computers, so there's
no cash scam possible. Any problems? So just because the
Berkshare and Liberty Dollar systems have weaknesses, it doesn't
mean the well-designed time-trading networks do.
---

>Justin Bowen
>Posted: May 04 2009 3:05 pm

JB: There is only one reason for this currency. It is a way to
get your real dollars out of your wallets and into the local
currency printers hands.

JCT: And when all the real dollars are out of our wallets at the
local poker game and into the local currency printers' (bank)
hands, what are you afraid the banker can do?

JB: Kind of like the US dollar, eh?

JCT: Kind of the like the US dollar, not. All positives balance
all negatives and everyone can inspect the books at anytime.
---

>The Justice
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 3:54 pm

TJ: I have to agree with justin. It doesn't necessarily need to
be gold, but something tangible with value. Heck, it could be
gold, silver, wheat, corn, oil, land, fire wood, water, etc.....
anything that has a real use and a finite amount.

JCT: Any of them can be numeraire with which we valuate the
others but time is the best because time is the easiest-
understood all around the world. Which is why time is now being
traded all around the world.

TJ: The liberty dollar was the best thing this country has
attempted in a very long time, and was one step that would have
actually resulted in more freedom and liberty for citizens from
the world bankers (your gov).

JCT: And if an inferior model based on a substance in short
supply designed to incur government wrath would be of such
benefit, imagine a superior model based on a substance of value
in abundance and designed to comply with government regulations
would be of even greater benefit. Michani Moolah linked to time
will be accepted all around the world as readily as my personal
time-IOU was.
---

>richard ferguson
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 5:32 pm

RJ: Can we spell forged, sounds like a scam in the works..... Bad
idea, by the way what is downtown to spend it on. Bars, or the
hall of shame its a ghost town.

JCT: This kind of senseless criticism can only arise with cash-
buy-in chips.
---

>Karl Hardy
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 5:33 pm

KH: For the record, this is a non-profit grassroots project by
and for Michiana-area residents. No one is or will be making
money from our local currency.

JCT: Do you think these guys can help but think it's now a
conspiracy?

KH: The merits (or lack of) deserve thoughtful research before
forming an opinion:
Local currency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
Ithaca Hours (model we are basing our effort on from Ithaca, NY)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours
You can also get more information on our local effort at:
http://www.michianacurrency.org

JCT: The last thing the uninformed want to do is get informed.
---

>mike trzcinski
>Date: Posted: May 04 2009 5:40 pm

MT: WHO? Pays for the cost of having this local currency.

JCT: Use a pure computer credit system and no one does. But if
you want the convenience of paper chips, sure there'll be a print
job unless you install a standard note anyone can download, print
out in the right time-denominations, sign, register and use. So
you don't need the suspicious print job whose costs worry you so.
Say only those who want to use paper buy the notes once printed,
feel any better?

MT: I thought this idea had come and gone and the "community"
decided it wasn't such a grand idea???

JCT: I'm sure many in the community who think this do-it-yourself
self-help currency system had come and gone and are quite content
to do nothing counting on local governments to save the day.

MT: Please inform or correct my ignorance?

JCT: Done.
---

>Gypsy Jeff
>Date: Posted: May 05 2009 1:54 am

GJ: Currency is issued by governments; the full faith and credit
of those governments guarantee the value of the currency..

JCT: And local currency is issued by your neighbors; the full
faith and credit of those neighbors guarantees the value of the
Hour IOU currency. So who would you want to trust? Big
Government or Local Neighbor?

GJ: "Social Dollars"? Sounds like the old socialist barter
system.

JCT: Let the socialists save themselves with the old socialist
barter system that saved Russia and Argentina just recently. No
social dollars needed to save America when it's already being
saved satisfactorily.

GJ: It would not be "legal tender", nor could it be legal tender.

JCT: It would be receipt for a constant value in time.

GJ: What does the Farmer's Market versus WalMart have to do with
anything. We are no longer an agrarian society.

JCT: When the local shoemaker takes your money then comes back to
spend his profit in your store, versus when Walmart takes your
money and then sends the profit out of town, it has nothing to do
with agrarian shoes.
---

>Brian Lewis
>Date: Posted: May 05 2009 4:56 am

BL: Ok Karl, How does one obtain a denomination of local
currency? Will employers pay their workers in local currency?
Will banks cash local currency checks?
No, I'm going to have to trade my real money to get your fake
money. You will deposit my fake money in the bank and spend it.
Meanwhile, my newly obtained fake money will rot in a drawer and
never get used.
You seem determined that this is a grand idea and we are stupid
for rejecting it because we haven't researched it enough to fall
in love with it.
Sounds alot like the current white house administration.

JCT: After all I've explained, I agree with your conclusion that
"this is a grand idea and we are stupid for rejecting it because
we haven't researched it enough to fall in love with it."

BL: Take your flipping stupid currency and shove it.

JCT: Is there someway to stop Brian from joining when he finally
wises up to punish him? Can't. Just like no one can stop Ichaca
neighbors from accepting Ithaca Hours rather than do no deal, no
on can stop Brian from using the financial life-boat when he gets
desperate enough. He's not there yet. He's not looking for a way
out, he's looking for flaws in the only way out being offered.
Like guys who never got out of jail because they never checked to
find out the cell was unlocked.