Local Merchants Reject the House of Cards Built on $USD

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Reposted from the Marble Bag Blog

Deep in the Missouri Ozarks, a new community currency has appeared to meet the needs of the people. Joshua Deatherage, a local contractor who wears a half-dozen hats to feed his family of four children in Cabool, Missouri, is responsible for creating the new silver based Community Dollar. And it’s neither a Jed and Boys nor a Liberty Dollar venture.

As Deatherage explains, “I started thinking about a local silver currency the day after the Liberty Dollar was raided by the FBI.” He was concerned that the first value based currency might not survive so his new Community Dollar is only intended to circulate in central Missouri.

After three-and-a-half years, the young monetary entrepreneur who wanted to encourage local trade and commerce in his community, reports that over 60 merchants around Cabool and Mountain Grove are now using his Silver Community Dollar.

Recently, when Deatherage stopped by the local tire shop for repairs, the owner told him that he had received $100 in Community Dollars towards a set of tires from the local bar owner. That man told him he usually went out of town to Wal-Mart, but decided to spend his local currency closer to home. The tire shop owner then used the $100 at a Cabool clothing store that he sheepishly confessed he had never visited before. This is how a local community currency grows in small town America – one transaction at a time.

So who uses the $80,000 in Community Dollars that now circulate around the central Ozark area? “Just regular folks.” Deatherage says, “People use the money for a wide variety of goods and services. Around here, you can get clothing and food. And the bar and restaurants accept it, too. You can get almost anything you want or need with the silver Community Dollars.”

Deatherage’s new Community Dollar is available in four convenient denominations in pure .999 fine silver and a $2 copper denomination. The silver issue consists of a $50 piece that weights one Troy ounce, the $20 weighs two-fifths of an ounce, the $10 weighs one-fifth of an ounce and the $5 weighs one-tenth of an ounce. They all feature an oak tree with “Faith – Family – Freedom” on the obverse.