JCT: An article too good not to cite.

http://trustcurrency.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-community-currencies.html

Trust is the Only Currency

Saturday, August 29, 2009
Why community currencies?
by Deirdre Kent

DK: There is mounting evidence and increased awareness that the
world is in serious trouble, environmentally, socially, and
economically. In most cases we're well aware of what actions are
required in order to address the problems; the trouble is that
there never seems to be enough money to carry out necessary
remedies!

JCT: From http://johnturmel.com/poembank.htm

"With tools, materials and trades that cover total range,
Yet one ingredient is lacking, money to exchange."

DK: People often fail to make a connection between environmental
degradation or social disintegration and the design of our money
system.

JCT: After 30 years of trying to explain the scam with the chips
to an audience that sees without seeing and hears without
hearing, as predicted when discussing Mammon, I'm startled to see
a general awakening taking place but I've always predicted that
though they'll never understand on paper the theory that the
rotation of the bicycle wheels exerts a force that keeps you
straight up, once they're riding, they don't need to understand
how those rotational forces work in gyroscopes. Just trust the
engineer who's ready with the blueprint if you really want to
know.
As more and more people use their community currency, and when
they find out that their IOU for an hour's labor is also
acceptable all over the world too, like my IOUs for
accommodations in my 1999 European tour, there's be a quiet take-
down of the usury slavery system.
Notice Africa and Arabia using cell-phone credits as the new
currency and no one's been shooting their banksters. It's forgive
and forget and get on with economic heaven that's going on.

DK: At the heart of the money shortage is a monetary system that
drives exponential growth, of everything!

JCT: The money shortage is caused by the usury (positive
feedback) that makes debt exponential. Doubling and doubling debt
drives the demand for exponential doubling and doubling of
resource capture to stay even in their death-gamble mort-gage.

DK: Exponential growth cannot be sustained on a planet with
finite resources. The shortage of money comes about because most
of the money we use has been created by commercial banks as
interest bearing debt. Since the principal has been created but
not the interest, people and firms are obliged to compete with
one another to find the money to pay the interest, causing some
at least to go further into debt, and putting enormous pressure
on natural resources.

JCT: And if the bankers decide not to let the least go further
into debt, what happens? Foreclosure and seizure of collateral in
the cage backing the chips. They have power of life and death
over everyone. They can deny credit to one, foreclose, and
auction off the goods and grant credit to another in time for the
auction. The power to allocate credit is the power of life and
that's why it's called a death-gamble (mort-gage) where a ratio
of Principal/(Principal+Interest) survive while a ratio of
Interest /(Principal+Interest) get knocked out of the game into
foreclosure.

DK: Each year the total money supply must increase by at least
the amount of interest demanded, increasing the debt burden in
every indebted sector - company, credit card, student, mortgage,
and hire purchase. To recoup the interest on debts, businesses
build into their prices a percentage for interest.

JCT: They must charge a minimum Principal + Interest and maybe a
little profit but not likely more than just enough to at least
survive.

DK: The result is that those who are net debtors pay more on the
combination of their shopping baskets and their debt than they
can ever earn from interest on their savings or investments. One
result is that money is constantly being transferred from the
many net debtors to the few net creditors, widening the gap
between rich and poor.

JCT: Net debtors don't have any net savings which is why Jesus
said interest causes "him who has abundance to be given more and
from him who has no abundance, even what he has will be taken
away;" Reverse Robin Hood, Christ's most often quoted verse in
the scriptures (7 times) describing how interest takes from the
poor to give to the rich.


'Closing the Gap' becomes an impossibility.

JCT: Open an interest-free account at the UNILETS timebank, cut
checks to settle all your interest-bearing mort-gages and loans
and after that, all payments go against principal so all debts
get paid off someday and the gap is steadily closed.

DK: The money supply is forced to increase exponentially and
economic activity must constantly expand to avoid inflation. This
demand for 'growth' in turn brings escalating pressures on
society and the environment. The driving force behind the
economic growth imperative is the interest bearing debt money
system, a neglected factor in the sustainability discussion.

JCT: Or interest-bearing credit money. There's nothing wrong with
debt-money (IOU-based) and asset-money (collateral-based), it's
only the interest that causes the positive feedback instability
in either medium.
Say we both have assets of 1000 minutes in our cell phone
accounts and in payment of service, I transfer 100 so you have
1100 and I have 900. Or, say we both have liabilities of 1000
minutes owed to the company and I go more negative to -1100 and you
go less negative to -900. It doesn't matter whether we're trading
debt-currency or asset-currency, it's the feedback that's the
problem, only. Nehemiah 5:10 "Let the exacting of interest stop."

KD: Money as a measure that represents finite resources is at
odds with a system based on exponential growth. With this system
the business cycle of 'boom and bust' is inevitable and an
inflation rate persistently as high as 3% erodes the value of
money for everyone - business and professional people, teachers,
nurses, those on salaries, those on benefits or in retirement.
Although a great deal of attention has been paid to reforming
national and international currencies, a quiet, unassuming
worldwide movement to reclaim monetary democracy at a local level
has begun - namely the movement to create local currencies.


JCT: Quiet!!?? As an original LETS interest-free currency software
engineer, I've shouted the benefits of interest-free currency
from the rooftops and election podia in going on 70 elections
next week. I got the UNILETS resolution onto the Millennium
Declaration even though few noticed. I'd endorse local interest-
free currencies my LETS software pioneered yes, but I must also
endorse the UNILETS resolution for a global interest-free "time-
based currency" "to restructure the global financial
architecture." If it works on a small database, it'll work on a
big one, after all, it's only a chip bank.

> Living Economies believes that an essential ingredient of an
abundant, sustainable and just economy is interest free money at
every level - international, national and local, a belief at the
heart of the world wide development of thousands of community
currencies over the last 20 years.

JCT: Just link to the Time Standard of Money land it's
automatically System for Trading Employment Locally and
Internationally at the United Nations. STELINU backwards is
United Nations International & Local Employment Trading System.
UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments to use a "time-based
currency" "to restructure the global financial architecture."

DK: In a culture where the means of exchange is dominated by
supranational and national currencies like the US dollar and the
Euro most people fail to appreciate the potential power of
currencies designed for regional and local use.

JCT: It's not that we fail to notice, it's that we're not
informed because it doesn't make the news. My
http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers channel is on main source of
information on global banking systems engineering and local
currency installations. When was the last time you heard of tent
cities in Latin America? In US America they have the money to be
losing, in Latin they didn't and switched to regional monies. The
revolution is quiet but now massive and the change to global at
the flick of a switch, (upgrade to interest-free software). And
no shooting of bankers for what they did to us! Twitter, Google,
large databases are soon going to be facilitating time-based
payments. Between each other eventually!!

DK: In the face of the increasing inability of the present
monetary system to satisfy the needs of people and protect the
environment, the introduction of a comprehensive range of
currency systems will allow people to choose the one most suited
to the nature of a particular trade.

JCT: Since I already use my rudimentary UNILETS timebank account
http://johnturmel.com/unilets.htm for both local and global
trades, I would hope to maximize efficiency by needing only one.

DK: Recently developed smartcard technology can accommodate up to
five different currencies simultaneously.

JCT: Canadian dollar, US Dollar, Euros, Hours. If Hours are good
in Europe, US, Canada, why not use just one account. I think the
cell-phone is the uncontestable most efficient medium of
exchange.

DK: Whereas the national currency is kept artificially scarce to
maximise profits for the banks, local currencies have the
advantage of being in sufficient supply for all desirable trades.
With plenty of local currency in their purses - whether
electronic or real - shoppers can really choose to buy local.

JCT: And use the local currency to buy global too. When the local
currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many
dollars per unskilled hour child labor) Hours earned locally can
be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for
39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada
worth 5 Hours and it didn't make me short of Hour credits back in
Canada.

DK: A second advantage is that it gives people ownership of their
currency, notes created for a particular community give them
identification with place. Thirdly, with an abundant and interest
free currency designed for local exchanges, retailers can choose
local suppliers, maximising self-reliance and reducing
unnecessary transport costs. Community currencies will therefore
create incentives for import replacements.

JCT: Absolutely, home-grown will be at useful advantage in a
world where no one has to export unpurchasable-at-home-surplus.

DK: A fourth advantage is that manufacturers and primary
industries, freed from paying interest on their own currency, can
then choose to make longer term commercial decisions.

JCT: And lower their prices from P+I to P!!

DK: This will favour, for example, organic production of food and
the manufacture of more durable goods. Importantly, in an age
where increased automation and new technologies are creating
mounting underemployment and joblessness, a variety of sufficient
local currencies will increase employment opportunities, helping
stem the tide of increased social disruption.
Benefits derived from a change to interest free money and the
creation of diverse and well designed complementary currency
systems will flow upwards from local, through regional, national,
and supranational levels, and in the process diminish the gap
between rich and poor.

JCT: Benefits derived from a UNILETS time-based currency will
flow downwards from supranational to national, regional, local
levels and in the process eliminate what causes the gap between
rich and poor, the bane of usury.

DK: Additional benefits include increased importance of
traditionally undervalued activities, discouragement of
environmentally destructive activities, increased support for
small enterprise development and the strengthening of social
relationships.

JCT: Everybody wins earns a share.

DK: The potential positive impact of community currencies on the
environment and on society will be profound.

JCT: In an instant!!

DK: At the same time, developing the best working models possible
will provide economic 'life rafts' should there be collapse in
the global financial system.

JCT: The best working model is the UNILETS time-based model.

Posted by Heather Young at 9:15 AM

JCT: An inspiring post.

>August 29, 2009
>Mark Herpel said...
>editor@...
>Excellent post.

JCT: Check out his magazine, no mention of global UNILETS. On
purpose.