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On his website, "Travel Without Money", Australian reinventingmoney.com. The definitive source for LETS enthusiast James Taris tells of his personal experiences —_ information is Landsman Community Services Ltd, 1600 with LETS. At a time when he had quit his job and was ~— Embleton Crescent, Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada watching his money carefully, he attended a LETS group _—V9N 6N8, telephone +1 (250) 338 0213. meeting in his local community, where he learned that e could obtain a variety of services just for contributing — Limitations of Local Currency Systems an equivalent amount of his time. The result was the Local exchange systems demonstrate that "money" irst and best professional massage he had ever had, a need not be something that is scarce or for which uxury for which he could not justify paying $60 cash _ — people have to compete. Money is simply credit. As when he was gainfully employed. He "paid" for this and Benjamin Franklin observed, credit turns prosperity other services by learning various Internet and desktop — tomorrow into ready money today. Credit can be had publishing skills and contributing those skills to the without gold, banks, governments or even printing group, something he quite enjoyed. presses. It can all be done ona He has been demonstrating the computer. potential of the system by travelling . The concept is good, but there are around the world with very little A more serious some practical limitations to the LETS conventional money. QO 0 model and other community currency Friendly Favors is a LETS-type limitation of systems as currently practised. One is computerised exchange system that private that the usual incentives for repayment as grown beyond the _ local 1" " are lacking. Interest is not charged, community into a worldwide database supplemental and there may be no time limit for of over 12 000 members ane system currencies Is that repayment. iv you have eer lent racks the exchange of "Thankyou's", a ° money to a relative, you know the unit of measure considered to be the they fail to deal problem. Debts can go unpaid eauivatens of one dollar saved due toa with the indefinitely. You can lean on your riendly discount or favour received. relatives because you know where to The database also stores the mammoth debt find them; but in the anonymity of photos, résumés, talents, interests j j a city or a nation, borrowers on the and community-building skills of spider that ID honour system can just disappear participants. Develope Sergio into the night. Some alternatives p loped by Serg sucking the he nigh | Lub and Victor Grey of Walnut lifeblood from for keeping community members Creek, California, www.favors.org . honest have been suggested by is a non-commercial service "to the national Tom Greco, who writes: [T]here is always the possibility that a participant may choose to not honor his/her commitment, opting out of the system and refusing to deliver value equivalent to that received. There are three possible interconnect those envisioning a world that works for all". Unlike most LETS schemes, which have evolved among people short of money looking for alternative ways to trade, the Friendly Favors economy. membership includes people who are financially well off ways, which occur to me, of handling that risk. and highly credentialled, people who are particularly The first possibility is to use a "funded" exchange in which interested in the human resources potential of the each participant surrenders or pledges particular assets as system. As of May 2004, the Friendly Favors security against his/her commitment... A second possibility is membership was spread over more than 100 countries to maintain an "insurance" pool, funded by fees levied on all and its database was shared by over 200 groups with a transactions, to cover any possible losses. A third collective membership of over 42,000 [now 56,502 possibility...is reliance upon group co-responsibility, i.e., participants in 189 countries; Ed.], making it potentially having each participant within an affinity group bear the largest source of human resources available on the responsibility for the debits of the others.’ Internet. A number of good Internet sites are devoted to the Those are possibilities, but they are not so practical or community currency concept, including ithacahours.com, efficient as the contractual agreements used today, with madisonhours.org, Carol Brouillet's site at interest charges and late penalties enforceable in court. communitycurrency.org, and the International Journal of | Contracts to repay can be legally enforced by foreclosing Community Currency Research at uea.ac.uk/env/ijccr/, Fora on collateral, garnishing wages and applying other general discussion of alternative money proposals, see —_ remedies for breach of contract, with or without interest Tom Greco's Monetary Education Project at provisions. But interest penalties make borrowers more reinventingmoney.com. The definitive source for LETS information is Landsman Community Services Ltd, 1600 Embleton Crescent, Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada VON 6N8, telephone +1 (250) 338 0213. private "supplemental" with the sucking the lifeblood from the national economy. Those are possibilities, but they are not so practical or efficient as the contractual agreements used today, with interest charges and late penalties enforceable in court. Contracts to repay can be legally enforced by foreclosing on collateral, garnishing wages and applying other remedies for breach of contract, with or without interest provisions. But interest penalties make borrowers more 28 ¢ NEXUS A more serious limitation of currencies is that they fail to deal mammoth debt spider that is www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2009