USA Today has a piece on local currencies here.

Excerpt:

“A 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.”

The E.F. Schumacher Society has been promoting this idea for some years and with good results.  See more here.  Could local currencies play a role in our economic recovery? If this idea caught on, how would it change the global economic system? Can the majority of Americans imagine an economy not based on government-issued money?

h/t  to Rob Gingerich.

Local Culture
Local Culture
Local Culture
Local Culture

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6 COMMENTS

  1. I like it…only, the temptation to put Wendell on the bill is too strong and I’m afraid he wouldn’t like it.

  2. Are there any economists out there who would care to comment on the macro-economic implications of this? What would happen if it caught on and lots of communities started doing this?

  3. Wendell wouldn’t approve of his own image on the currency, but he might approve of a strategically raised middle finger imprinted thereon.

    Good post, FPer Mitchell.

  4. If it ever caught on it would be ruthlessly squashed by the Empire as an act of treason. Currency monopoly is a necessary tool of uniform accounting which is required for centralized control and, as always, insuring that the first and biggest piece of the pie goes to the gods of state.

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