Communities print their own currency to keep cash flowingA small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount -- say, 95 cents for $1 value -- and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.
Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.
MIDAS MULLIGAN ON A BILL ANYONE?
4 comments:
Epaminondas,
Isn't this technically illegal? I thought only the federal reserve was allowed to print currency?
I don't know, but who is going to bust people trying to help the economy?
Even his majesty might balk at that level of of arrogant intervention against community organization, eh?
If businesses account for it correctly in US dollars and pay taxes on it, it probably won't be a problem, although technically only the US can issue money.
It becomes a real "problem" when it undermines the fiat money.
So far it sounds like it is being used as a medium of local "barter" rather than as an attempt to undermine the US monetary system.
This is illegal.
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