Trust

by DH Lawrence

Oh we’ve got to trust
one another again
in some essentials.

Not the narrow little
bargaining trust
that says : I’m for you
if you’ll be for me.

But a bigger trust,
a trust of the sun
that does not bother
about moth and rust,
and we see it shining
in one another.

Oh don’t you trust me,
don’t you burden me
with your life and affairs;
don’t thrust
me into your cares.

But I think you may trust
the sun in me
that glows with just
as much glow as you see
in me, and no more.

But if it warms your heart’s quick core
why then trust it, it forms
one faithfulness more.

And be, oh be
a sun to me,
not a weary, insistent
personality

but a sun that shines
and goes dark, but shines
again and entwines
with the sunshine in me

till we both of us
are more glorious
and more sunny.

Is Income Equality the Killer App?

From Shareable.net
Why More Equality?

Our thirty years research shows that:

1) In rich countries, a smaller gap between rich and poor means a happier, healthier, and more successful population. Just look at the US, the UK, Portugal, and New Zealand in the top right of this graph, doing much worse than Japan, Sweden or Norway in the bottom left.

2) Meanwhile, more economic growth will NOT lead to a happier, healthier, or more successful population. In fact, there is no relation between income per head and social well-being in rich countries.

3) If the UK were more equal, we'd be better off as a population. For example, the evidence suggests that if we halved inequality here:


- Murder rates would halve
- Mental illness would reduce by two thirds
- Obesity would halve
- Imprisonment would reduce by 80%
- Teen births would reduce by 80%
- Levels of trust would increase by 85%

4) It's not just poor people who do better. The evidence suggests people all the way up would benefit, although it's true that the poorest would gain the most.

5) These findings hold true, whether you look across developed nations, or across the 50 states of the USA.

Barter and Cashless Trading Summit

Barter and Cashless Trading Summit, Sept. 22
Press Release: Steven Yoder, Saturday, February 27th, 2010

The International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA) announces Reaching The Stars: Uniting People & Standards In A Cashless Trading World,” a comprehensive barter and cashless trading conference to be held September 22nd — 25th 2005 at the Wyndham Palace Resort and Spa in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, USA. Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, will deliver the keynote presentation.

The conference will bring together key members of the international commercial and corporate barter industry. The event will address the collaboration of different sectors of reciprocal trade with a key focus on conduct and standards and aims to promote increased collaboration between barter and other sectors of international reciprocal trade. Keynote speaker Bernard Lietaer will discuss barter as a growing trend for businesses, individuals and communities around the world.

A variety of panel discussions will expose attendees to the universe of reciprocal trade, covering topics including collaboration between various reciprocal trading organizations, and how proponents of barter, alternative currency and other cashless trading methods can more effectively reach the masses, including businesses, communities and individuals with the message of the power of alternative monetary means.

This conference is the first of it’s kind and includes everyone now affecting the world of barter and other emerging methods of non-cash business commerce,” says Krista Vardabash, IRTA Executive Director. The agenda will address the way businesses, communities and individuals think about money, transact money and prosper using different forms of money — or no money at all.

We feel that the time is right for IRTA to promote the collaboration of different philosophies, methods and approaches to cashless commerce. Technology and various economic dynamics worldwide are creating increased interest in alternative ways of doing business,” says Lois Dale, IRTA President, IRTA has a 25 year history of working on behalf of the barter industry. We feel we have a lot to offer and share as well as learn from the various models of barter around the world and other sectors of reciprocal trade. Our annual event is the ideal venue to make this happen”

IRTA is a non-profit organization of companies committed to promoting reciprocal trade, such as commercial barter, to businesses and communities worldwide. IRTA fulfills its purpose by uniting barter exchanges under a common Code of Ethics, promoting barter as a responsible form of commerce to the public, media, and government and sharing best practices and new trading opportunities to enhance growth and profitability of barter industry members.

For more information, registration and a full program schedule:

Reaching For The Stars”

Uniting People & Standards In A Cashless Trading World

September 23rd — 25th 2005

Wyndham Palace Resort & Spa

in WALT DISNEY WORLD®

Orlando, Florida USA

Tel: 585-424-2940

www.irta.com

Contact:

Steven V. Yoder

GET THE WORD OUT COMMUNICATIONS

415-294-4133 ph/fax

steven@getslightlyfamous.com 

Local Currency Council to hold it's First Online Conference

Press Release- First LCC Conference

The first virtual conference between local currency systems, their developers, and supporters, will be held online using webcameras, telephones, and Skype.

Eugene, Oregon, February 20th, 2010 -- The Local Currency Council, will host their online conference on March 6th, 2010 from 12-3pm (Pacific Standard Time). Participants from around the world are facilitating discussions intended to establish and strengthen the bonds between various community-based currency systems.

To further the communication, cooperation, and fellowship of the various currencies, the Local Currency Conference is being held to assist in bringing these community voices into a common platform from which we can stand strong and help other communities, as well as our own, to further embrace and flourish in their own self-worth and commerce. We will share information and resources, successes and failures, and visions and our plans to achieve them.

Participants from several countries, representing different local community currencies will be holding conversations on a wide range of relevant topics, including in part:

Communicating between currencies: Various exchange systems underway, The Basic Rights & Needs: Currencies, who's money is it anyhow? Mundialization- The U.N. Plan for Peace: How local currency can take responsibility for contributing to the common good, Private & Public currency systems: How local currencies interact with governing structures. and Local Participation: Getting the word out and the community involved.

Local currencies help to ensure a community's survival economically and socially. Often created in the face of financial crisis, these currencies have served as a lifeline to their communities. In our current global financial climate, success of a local currency system may mean the difference between strife and survival.

There has been a tremendous surge in the use of local currencies over the past two decades. Today there are over 2,500 different local currency systems operating in countries throughout the world. Since 2002 there has been an upsurge in local currency experiments. Such currencies aim to raise the resilience of local economies by encouraging re-localisation of buying and food production. The drive for this change has arisen from a range of community-based initiatives and social movements.

For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release contact Kevin Kerber or visit localcurrencycouncil.org.

About The Local Currency Council:
The LCC is a Private Member Association which serves as an advocacy group dedicated to preserving the fundamentals rights of self-governing local-economic systems. The LCC provides a communication platform for developers and supporters of local currency systems.

Exchange is one of mankind's most basic and demonstrated rights. LCC believes local currencies are an established basic right and basic need, preceding state, federal, and global controls. In a balanced scenario a local currency would interact with national and global currencies, but also stand on it's own, weathering the changing conditions outside it's local sphere. The LCC has been established as a private member association, a peer-to-peer private-contract forum to serve the needs of its members.

Contact:

Kevin Kerber, Director
Local Currency Council
541-942-3227
http://localcurrencycouncil.org

Help Send the Network of Bay Area Worker Coops to the Social Forum

HELP SEND NOBAWC REPRESENTATIVES to the Social Forum in Detroit. June 22 – 26, 2010
The last USSF, in 2007, introduced worker cooperatives to thousands of participants from all over the country. Several NoBAWC members attended the 2007 Social Forum.
Today worker cooperatives have achieved favorable public recognition with Michael Moore’s Capitalism-A Love Story, the recent agreement with Mondragon and the US Steelworkers and with the recent worker co-ops established in Cleveland. More co-op projects are beginning in several cities across the country.
Many of the 20,000 activists expected to attend the Forum in Detroit will be looking for economic programs that empower local people.
Given this interest in cooperatives, an organization like NoBAWC, a truly unique institution – the largest network of worker co-ops in the U.S. – will interest social justice and environmental activists searching for positive alternatives.
To Quote from Social Forum website:
The USSF provides a space to build relationships, learn from each others experiences, share our
analysis of the problems our communities face and bring renewed insight and inspiration to social
movement organizations. Through the USSF process, grassroots groups, coalitions and networks build leadership and develop collective consciousness, vision and strategies needed to realize another world.
The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world that another world is possible.
For more info on the USSF, visit: http://www.ussf2010.org/about.

Please make checks payable to NoBAWC and in the memo please write USSF.
More info available. Short presentations at co-op general meetings possible.
Thank You,
"NoBAWC committee for Fundraising for USSF 2010"

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.

Montpelier Gets $1M Grant for Eldercare Exchange

By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: October 1, 2009
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20091001/NEWS02/910010351/1003/NEWS02

MONTPELIER – When Gwendolyn Hallsmith's mother suffered a debilitating stroke some years ago, the Montpelier director of planning came face-to-face with shortcomings in the region's elder-care system.

Too financially secure to qualify for government-subsidized home care but too strapped to afford the services she needed to exist happily in her own home, Hallsmith's mother occupied a middle ground in which coordinating even simple tasks took their toll on the stricken woman and her family.

"It was a real struggle for us," Hallsmith says. "She died two years ago, and I think the struggle we had with her ongoing care was part of reason she died when she did."

On Wednesday, Hallsmith got word that the city of Montpelier has been awarded up to a $1 million grant from the federal Administration on Aging to remedy some of the systemic elder-assistance problems that complicated the end of her own mother's life.

"I wrote the grant in my mother's memory," Hallsmith says. "I wanted to make sure when writing this grant that people don't have the same struggles she had and we had."

The money, $334,000 this year, with the potential for another two-thirds of a million dollars over the next two years, will fund a radical initiative that Hallsmith says could reshape elder care not only in Washington County but one day the nation. Rather than rely on traditional health care structures that use Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance or personal wealth to fund care services, the plan is to motivate local citizens to take a more active role in the lives of elders struggling in their midst.

Working through the Onion River Exchange – a local "time bank" organization that coordinates a side economy based on units of hours instead of dollars – Hallsmith hopes elders and their families can solve dilemmas that might otherwise force disabled or ailing seniors out of their homes.

"Time banks already exchange goods and services in this structure," Hallsmith says. "And so the motivation is not only that people are altruistic and want to care for elders, but also because there are benefits that accrue to you in the system."

The 300-member Onion River Exchange already facilitates an hour-based economy throughout Washington County. The grant, awarded by a federal program called Community Innovations for Aging in Place, will fund the staff that ORE and other partners need to expand the range of services available for seniors.

Shoveling snow, for example, or hanging storm windows, can prove a significant hardship for seniors on a fixed income. Tasks as elemental as grocery shopping might pose severe problem for older people whose failing sight prevents them from using a car. Those necessities, according to local health officials, generally aren't covered by private insurance or Medicaid.

But if seniors, or their family members, pay into the time bank by performing useful tasks, elders can trade that time for the kind of assistance they need to exist at home.

"We're really excited to be a part of this, and it's a unique opportunity which I believe allows recipients of care or services to be contributors of care or services," says Beth Stern, director of the Central Vermont Agency on Aging. "In most cases, these kinds of services aren't covered by Medicare or Medicaid unless you meet very specific guidelines. But they certainly are things people need to live."

The Agency on Aging will receive a portion of the federal grant money to hire an employee to coordinate care and services for the clients it serves. The Onion River Exchange also will have a staff member to oversee the elder-care program. An executive director, also funded by the grant, will oversee the process.

The time-bank system isn't based on money, but it certainly doesn't shun it. Hallsmith says the concept isn't intended to supplant conventional health care paradigms, nor would it do away with the agencies and organizations through which those services are provided.

"We aren't trying to replace dollars," Hallsmith says.

Rather the time-bank system offers access to services that people without dollars would otherwise struggle to obtain. Global markets might not reward the time spent putting together a homemade meal for four. But the single mother who uses it to feed her family does. And that same woman, the theory goes, would be willing to remunerate her benefactor by helping that person go to grocery store or clean her house.

Filling in those kinds of gaps in elder-care gaps, Hallsmith says, is what the time-bank concept looks to achieve. She says the model could be replicated in cities across the nation.

"MRIs and lab tests are never going to be traded in this system," Hallsmith says. "But things people can spend time on can be."

Hallsmith and Stern say massive projected increases in the number of elders in central Vermont will only exacerbate care problems. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of people aged 65 to 74 is expected to increase by 63 percent while the number of people over 85 is expected to grow by 23 percent. And demographers anticipate a 48-percent rise in the number of people 65 or older with at least two disabilities that limit their daily activities.

"The number of elders we know is increasing dramatically," Stern says. "It's not going to be a problem that goes away anytime soon, so we need everything we can get."

According to a federal official, Montpelier won't have to compete for the grant next year, but it will have to exhibit progress toward its goals. Project merit, and available funding, will determine whether the city receives the next two installments of the $1 million grant.