They may be talking funny money, but it’s not funny business.
Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.
“You have all these people who have local currency, and they’re going to spend it at local stores,” said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. “They can’t spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store.”
Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.
[…]
As long as communities don’t create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks—and they’d don’t even have to be green.
I wonder if they could fund the bailouts with this since that plan is working so well.
kind of like the Liberty Dollar…
WE NEED A REVOLUTION!
You PAY $100US for $110FunkyBucks?
Sounds like a gift coupon to me.
If the hookers and crack dealers accept the new currency then you know the plan will work.
I’m originally from Milwaukee, and I know the area. All I can say is…
“Fucking hippies.”
Yeah,
But unless they go to great extent to prevent it their currency could be easily counterfeited with any computer and inkjet printer. Probably much easier to counterfeit than US Currency. And worth more.
I guess they would have to use a central computer based bar-code database and each bill would have to have a unique serial number that must be checked against the database before the funny money can be redeemed for services or goods.
I like the barter system better. Seems to me this system just repeats the same mistakes. In any case, economic crisis often brings a resurgence of alternative economic systems. I guess we’ll be seeing more news like this.
How would this work? Eventually the “funny money” would have to be converted back to U.S. tender for the local vendors to restock their shelves. Who is going to do that?
#2. We are revolting enough.
btw, love John’s pic in the 10k bill above…
-kudos.
-s
We got that in Toronto.
http://torontodollar.com/FAQ/index.php#okay
Not that successful.
In fact, I’m surprised it’s still alive.
#11: It’s the currency of the land of Dvorakia where John resides in his vast, palatial mansion. He’s waited on by a mysterious guy named Mac who stands ready to hand him a new, vintage wine whenever his diamond (crystal? ha!) goblet runs dry. Hour after hour, hoards of computer geeks besiege the mansion’s smashed RAZR and iPhone topped walls, grovelling, begging, pleading to be noticed and excoriated in print or podcast. They are guarded by the evil James Hill who forces them to drink a cruel gulp of Microsoft’s Ultra Vistawine SP31 every time John utters the holy words, “dvorak dot org slash blog,” as one of the unwashed is chosen for immortality. The rest should be so lucky.
Lucky #13 – Unk
>>who forces them to drink a cruel gulp of Microsoft’s
>>Ultra Vistawine SP31.
Now THAT is cruel and unusual punishment.
To paraphrase the great Marcellus Wallace “The world is full of motherfuckin’ operating systems that thought their ass would age like fine wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don’t.”
Not even 31 service packs could drag that dog turd of an OS out of the gutter.
Up here in Canada, a secondary currency exists to a degree… Canadian Tire money!
I suspect that if offered $40 for a construction job payment or $100 in Canadian Tire money, many will happily take the Tire money!
Since 1958!
http://www2.canadiantire.ca/CTenglish/ctmoney.html
“As long as communities don’t create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce ”
Betcha yer wrong
Just watch
This story makes no sense: Everyone knows cheddar is the official currency of Wisconsin, while food stamps and Happy Days memorabilia are the official sub-currency of Milwaukee.
#13 – I always like a warm story during the holidays. That got me even more choked up than the Comcast ad where the prehistoric beaver says “I… WUV Yew”.
One of the regulars on CTC AM, Catherine Austin Fitts, advocates something roughly like this. BTW, I would have voted Adam Curry the Devil before John.