We are building platforms and protocols necessary for an open source economy. This requires new technology capacities which need to function in a non-monopolizable manner.
* Open Identity: Create, manage and own your identity in a trustworthy manner, independent of any central authority.
* Open Rules: Know the rules of any currency you participate in and see when they change.
* Open Transport: A protocol to enable a participant to transact with any other participant and a currency to interact with any other currency.
* Open Data: The ability to share, decentralize and distribute data (like your account balance) and ensure its integrity and privacy… also, to allow you to be a reliable authority of your own data. (You can represent your own accounts, and I can validate your data.)
For more info see Metacurrency Project.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Co-ops at center of coming elections in Great Britain
March 10, 2010
from Workers Paradise
Are British politicians proposing to alleviate austerity by creating co-operative public services?
In Great Britain this spring, the Labour Party, in power for thirteen years, is threatened with electoral defeat by the Conservatives. The British public, disgusted with Labour’s submissiveness to the bankers, may vote for the Conservatives as a protest – a political dynamic Americans will recognize.
The Labour Party re-branded itself as New Labour to return to power in the late ‘90’s after twenty years in opposition. It formally jettisoned its socialist heritage (abandoned in practice since the 60’s) and opting for a “progressive” neo-liberalism. Labour’s new leader, the young and photogenic Tony Blair modeled his campaign on Bill Clinton’s, and even hired Clinton’s managers to direct it. Labour won handsomely.
Blair’s star declined two years ago (he can thank Bush and the Iraq war) and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) became party leader and Prime Minister. Brown, as Finance Minister and then as Prime Minister championed unbridled financialization until the banks collapsed, so it’s fitting he gets booted out of office. The Conservatives, not a better alternative, are however not certain of victory – their “numbers” are declining – and so both parties have been scurrying about to find a Big New Idea to wrap themselves in.
That idea is to have public services, like healthcare and education, managed by their staff. To push this program, bizarre in itself, both parties are endorsing the participatory management structure of John Lewis, a home furnishings retailer and supermarket chain. This 150 year-old enterprise, employing 70,000 and grossing £6.05 billion ($7.5 billion), introduced profit-sharing in the 20’s along with a system of employee respect and recognition that today accommodates staff-wide communication from the clerk up to the president. It’s not a worker co-operative. There is no equivalent business that Americans can related it to; it might be characterize as a firm where the employees have stockholder privileges without holding any stock (!) and the closest equivalent might be a “democratic” Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP). It does provide, without question, far more worker participation than any business outside of the British co-operative community.
To have both major parties in Great Britain vying over schemes of worker participation elevates the concept to the popularity attained in the 70’s, when several thousand small worker co-operatives blossomed in the contentious political terrain of that era, also a period of economic decline. When the Conservative Party came into power it de-funded the Cooperative Development Agencies that Labour had created to aid this new economic sector. Without the necessary professional help the fledgling worker co-ops declined to the point that today fewer than 400 exist. Unlike in the US, where agriculture and energy are the major players in the co-operative sector, in the UK, the Co-op Supermarket dominates. And that network is huge. In fact, it’s the world’s largest consumer-owned business, with over 4.5 million members and 123,000 employees.
It’s interesting to note that UK’s largest worker co-operative, with 130 members, also functions in the food sector. Suma, a food wholesaler wholly managed by its worker force, supplies organic and fairly traded food to co-ops and natural foods stores. Despite its size, Suma proudly maintains its founding vision: it combats hierarchy by paying all members the same wage, and it encourages job rotation.
Something is rotten in the United Kingdom
Both the Conservatives and Labour recognize that the economic collapse, coupled with a House of Commons scandal over expense account fraud affecting members from all parties, has generated unprecedented popular anger. As in the States, the bank bailouts have been the focus for much of this anger, but unlike in the States, where at best we are encouraged to move our money to small banks, among the Brits a movement has grown to seize one of the largest banks, Northern Rock, and transform it into a community-owned bank.
Another aspect of the popular outrage in the UK resembles a growing hostility to large corporations that we see here. And for the same reasons: overweening political influence, off-shoring, growing inequality of wealth and severe cutbacks of wages and benefits. The “ethical deficit” of modern corporations has spurred universal condemnation.
The politicians in the UK, however, have created a clever way (they hope) of defusing outrage against the private sector by seemingly endorsing a radical response – worker control of the public sector. They are proclaiming a radical new kind of citizen participation as their answer to popular discontent and their lack of legitimacy.
It should be noted that for several years the British have been re-structuring both health-care services and education through community and staff collaboration. These efforts, called Trusts (and sometimes referred to as “Mutuals” share similar characteristics to multi-stakeholder co-operatives), have been somewhat successful in eliminating bureaucratic overreach and streamlining operations to better serve the public. And they have been financially successful; they have saved the government money.
Co-opting popular outrage
While the two major parties ostensibly endorse these new management arrangements in hospitals and schools, they nonetheless do have rival brands of “citizen control” on offer. The electoral circus must appear as a contest between rivals for votes, after all. Here’s what’s being proposed, first by the Conservatives and then Labour.
Based on the ideological premise that Labour’s statist approach to public services, mainly in education and health-care produces inefficiencies and waste, the Tories propose to have state-funded services managed by their staff. They actually have called for “worker co-operatives” and, further, that the staff would pocket any savings resulting from efficient operations.
Labour, on the other hand, offers a borough of London, Lambeth, as its model of public control of public services. Here the local council government experiments with volunteer community efforts. They point to a successful urban garden program, for instance, that the local council organized by hiring an experienced activist who organized 50 community gardens. Besides the gardens, her efforts to involve the community achieved a benefit that is commendable but can’t be easily tabulated. However paying one skilled community activist was a lot cheaper than hiring a crew of gardeners.
This same borough encouraged parents to petition to take over a local closed school and transform it into a community center, especially for after-school youth programs. And again the participants’ time was not calculated in the local budget and, of course, neither was the newly generated “social capital.” Labour seems to see this as a “problem” that can be addressed by offering local tax rebates to community members who participate in the volunteer projects.
Lambeth, not inconsequentially, is the home of a successful worker cooperative that may have been influential by its example of good management. Greenwich Leisure, was taken over by its staff in the 90’s when the cash-strapped Lambeth council could no longer maintain the services. Today the original leisure center has been replicated to include 70 facilities in thirteen London boroughs. While managed by the staff, these centers have community members on their boards to broaden involvement. This is the model that Labour seeks to adopt with maybe more community and less worker control. It differs from the Conservative’s proposal that seeks only the participation of staff, which many fear will eventually lead to privatization.
Again, once more, smoke and mirrors
Though innovative on the surface these proposals, by Labour and their “rival,” present some organizational (and political) difficulties that need to be considered.
Both parties advocate a form of participation that differs considerably from the worker cooperative model situated in the private economy. When public funds are the sole source of financing how much control will the staff actually possess? And what to do when funds are cut? Already the Lambeth council expects at least 20 percent less funding for 2010. And what about the physical plant? Will it be leased? Sold? Can the worker co-op institute its own for-profit ventures? And what will be the role of unions in all this? These and other “details” the Labour leader of Lambeth says will be discussed in commission hearings later this year.
Currently the Conservatives, in local councils that they control, propose to respond to funding cuts by charging for services above a minimum level. The wealthy, in other words, will move to the head of the line, a familiar scenario in the US. Or worse, they will be privatized, and we know what that means also.
So the Labour initiative on public services seems a wiser choice. It allows, in theory, for more local control by the users, the public, and the staff. If the follow-through reduces bureaucracy and top-down control, then this could be a positive development and mark a significant departure from the way public services are currently delivered.
Transforming the public sector to be more “user-friendly” is a worthwhile goal. But whether that goal will be met in the manner Labour, much less the Conservatives, are pursuing it seems dubious. The hallmark of co-operative ventures must be their democratic practice, without that we have just verbiage in tow to political gain. Something similar happened in the US during the discussion last summer about so-called healthcare co-operatives. No politician wanted local, democratic control of healthcare.
If the Borough of Lambeth were proposing something like participatory budgeting based on the extensive municipal practice pioneered in Brazil, where citizens actually had at least a bit of control over some funds to improve services, then maybe the goal of true community involvement could be attained. But without a radical revision of how local government allocates resources, especially in a time of austerity, enticing local community support with monetary perks, as has been suggested, risks creating a claque of self-interested locals who, for whatever reason, pursue their agenda instead that of the community.
Civic engagement occurs for many reasons that need not entail comprehensive, centralized administration. The joy of working on a worthwhile project with one’s neighbors needs little stimulus from some bureaucrat in an office someplace. Encouragement to engage in larger projects is needed. Who will entice strangers to collaborate, so that they cease being “unknowns” and successfully engage in pursuit of meaningful activity? Having access to real power, the goal of participatory budgeting, may be the possible institutional avenue towards reviving civic life by creating significant, practical change people easily recognize.
Diverting the focus from the private economy to the public realm appears to be a pretty transparent attempt to change the subject. One suspects that both Labour and certainly the Conservatives have no idea how to salvage an economy that has been devastated by more than twenty years of neo-liberal practices. The UK for instance has lost manufacturing on a scale similar to the US. The recent Cadbury Chocolate take-over by Kraft Foods was just the last episode in a recurring story. The trade unions anticipate huge cuts in the 7,000 jobs so that Kraft’s heavily indebted exposure is repaired.
The recent closing of the only large turbine facility in Great Britain by its Danish owner without a response exposed Labour’s inability to think creatively about retaining manufacturing.
Creating a co-operative economy
While the politicians prepare their circus acts, the real news on economic matters in Great Britain comes from Scotland. There, a four year-old co-operative development group is successfully establishing employee-managed firms. This group can advise for a range of alternatives, from start-ups to employee buy-outs of firms ready for transition of ownership. Scottish government development funds finance them and over the years they have assisted a host of thriving firms and have gained valuable experience creating ventures that provide for economic sustainability.
If Labour (or the Conservatives) really wanted to tackle economic development and not simply pose with a half-baked idea, they would fund replications of Co-operative Development Scotland in all major British cities. This act alone would not solve all the problems of an economy facing the worst prospects in generations, but it is at least a start. It would be a real demonstration that there are alternatives to another financial bubble economy. And it would place the focus on local economic development as the prime response to strengthening initiatives to deal with climate change and food security issues.
Funding local co-operative development agencies should also be considered a viable program for the US to adopt. The Obama administration has restored Bush’s cutbacks to the Cooperative Rural Development Grant Program, and in the current budget will double its funds. This granting program has proved effective in strengthening rural economic development. The next step would be to create an urban equivalent maybe modeled after the Dept of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency. Co-op projects already underway in the Bronx, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago, to name the most prominent and recent examples, demonstrate the viability of this approach. Isn’t it time for the federal government to recognize these accomplishments and fund more of them?
Bernard Marszalek
info@jasecon.org
March 10, 2010
from Workers Paradise
Are British politicians proposing to alleviate austerity by creating co-operative public services?
In Great Britain this spring, the Labour Party, in power for thirteen years, is threatened with electoral defeat by the Conservatives. The British public, disgusted with Labour’s submissiveness to the bankers, may vote for the Conservatives as a protest – a political dynamic Americans will recognize.
The Labour Party re-branded itself as New Labour to return to power in the late ‘90’s after twenty years in opposition. It formally jettisoned its socialist heritage (abandoned in practice since the 60’s) and opting for a “progressive” neo-liberalism. Labour’s new leader, the young and photogenic Tony Blair modeled his campaign on Bill Clinton’s, and even hired Clinton’s managers to direct it. Labour won handsomely.
Blair’s star declined two years ago (he can thank Bush and the Iraq war) and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) became party leader and Prime Minister. Brown, as Finance Minister and then as Prime Minister championed unbridled financialization until the banks collapsed, so it’s fitting he gets booted out of office. The Conservatives, not a better alternative, are however not certain of victory – their “numbers” are declining – and so both parties have been scurrying about to find a Big New Idea to wrap themselves in.
That idea is to have public services, like healthcare and education, managed by their staff. To push this program, bizarre in itself, both parties are endorsing the participatory management structure of John Lewis, a home furnishings retailer and supermarket chain. This 150 year-old enterprise, employing 70,000 and grossing £6.05 billion ($7.5 billion), introduced profit-sharing in the 20’s along with a system of employee respect and recognition that today accommodates staff-wide communication from the clerk up to the president. It’s not a worker co-operative. There is no equivalent business that Americans can related it to; it might be characterize as a firm where the employees have stockholder privileges without holding any stock (!) and the closest equivalent might be a “democratic” Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP). It does provide, without question, far more worker participation than any business outside of the British co-operative community.
To have both major parties in Great Britain vying over schemes of worker participation elevates the concept to the popularity attained in the 70’s, when several thousand small worker co-operatives blossomed in the contentious political terrain of that era, also a period of economic decline. When the Conservative Party came into power it de-funded the Cooperative Development Agencies that Labour had created to aid this new economic sector. Without the necessary professional help the fledgling worker co-ops declined to the point that today fewer than 400 exist. Unlike in the US, where agriculture and energy are the major players in the co-operative sector, in the UK, the Co-op Supermarket dominates. And that network is huge. In fact, it’s the world’s largest consumer-owned business, with over 4.5 million members and 123,000 employees.
It’s interesting to note that UK’s largest worker co-operative, with 130 members, also functions in the food sector. Suma, a food wholesaler wholly managed by its worker force, supplies organic and fairly traded food to co-ops and natural foods stores. Despite its size, Suma proudly maintains its founding vision: it combats hierarchy by paying all members the same wage, and it encourages job rotation.
Something is rotten in the United Kingdom
Both the Conservatives and Labour recognize that the economic collapse, coupled with a House of Commons scandal over expense account fraud affecting members from all parties, has generated unprecedented popular anger. As in the States, the bank bailouts have been the focus for much of this anger, but unlike in the States, where at best we are encouraged to move our money to small banks, among the Brits a movement has grown to seize one of the largest banks, Northern Rock, and transform it into a community-owned bank.
Another aspect of the popular outrage in the UK resembles a growing hostility to large corporations that we see here. And for the same reasons: overweening political influence, off-shoring, growing inequality of wealth and severe cutbacks of wages and benefits. The “ethical deficit” of modern corporations has spurred universal condemnation.
The politicians in the UK, however, have created a clever way (they hope) of defusing outrage against the private sector by seemingly endorsing a radical response – worker control of the public sector. They are proclaiming a radical new kind of citizen participation as their answer to popular discontent and their lack of legitimacy.
It should be noted that for several years the British have been re-structuring both health-care services and education through community and staff collaboration. These efforts, called Trusts (and sometimes referred to as “Mutuals” share similar characteristics to multi-stakeholder co-operatives), have been somewhat successful in eliminating bureaucratic overreach and streamlining operations to better serve the public. And they have been financially successful; they have saved the government money.
Co-opting popular outrage
While the two major parties ostensibly endorse these new management arrangements in hospitals and schools, they nonetheless do have rival brands of “citizen control” on offer. The electoral circus must appear as a contest between rivals for votes, after all. Here’s what’s being proposed, first by the Conservatives and then Labour.
Based on the ideological premise that Labour’s statist approach to public services, mainly in education and health-care produces inefficiencies and waste, the Tories propose to have state-funded services managed by their staff. They actually have called for “worker co-operatives” and, further, that the staff would pocket any savings resulting from efficient operations.
Labour, on the other hand, offers a borough of London, Lambeth, as its model of public control of public services. Here the local council government experiments with volunteer community efforts. They point to a successful urban garden program, for instance, that the local council organized by hiring an experienced activist who organized 50 community gardens. Besides the gardens, her efforts to involve the community achieved a benefit that is commendable but can’t be easily tabulated. However paying one skilled community activist was a lot cheaper than hiring a crew of gardeners.
This same borough encouraged parents to petition to take over a local closed school and transform it into a community center, especially for after-school youth programs. And again the participants’ time was not calculated in the local budget and, of course, neither was the newly generated “social capital.” Labour seems to see this as a “problem” that can be addressed by offering local tax rebates to community members who participate in the volunteer projects.
Lambeth, not inconsequentially, is the home of a successful worker cooperative that may have been influential by its example of good management. Greenwich Leisure, was taken over by its staff in the 90’s when the cash-strapped Lambeth council could no longer maintain the services. Today the original leisure center has been replicated to include 70 facilities in thirteen London boroughs. While managed by the staff, these centers have community members on their boards to broaden involvement. This is the model that Labour seeks to adopt with maybe more community and less worker control. It differs from the Conservative’s proposal that seeks only the participation of staff, which many fear will eventually lead to privatization.
Again, once more, smoke and mirrors
Though innovative on the surface these proposals, by Labour and their “rival,” present some organizational (and political) difficulties that need to be considered.
Both parties advocate a form of participation that differs considerably from the worker cooperative model situated in the private economy. When public funds are the sole source of financing how much control will the staff actually possess? And what to do when funds are cut? Already the Lambeth council expects at least 20 percent less funding for 2010. And what about the physical plant? Will it be leased? Sold? Can the worker co-op institute its own for-profit ventures? And what will be the role of unions in all this? These and other “details” the Labour leader of Lambeth says will be discussed in commission hearings later this year.
Currently the Conservatives, in local councils that they control, propose to respond to funding cuts by charging for services above a minimum level. The wealthy, in other words, will move to the head of the line, a familiar scenario in the US. Or worse, they will be privatized, and we know what that means also.
So the Labour initiative on public services seems a wiser choice. It allows, in theory, for more local control by the users, the public, and the staff. If the follow-through reduces bureaucracy and top-down control, then this could be a positive development and mark a significant departure from the way public services are currently delivered.
Transforming the public sector to be more “user-friendly” is a worthwhile goal. But whether that goal will be met in the manner Labour, much less the Conservatives, are pursuing it seems dubious. The hallmark of co-operative ventures must be their democratic practice, without that we have just verbiage in tow to political gain. Something similar happened in the US during the discussion last summer about so-called healthcare co-operatives. No politician wanted local, democratic control of healthcare.
If the Borough of Lambeth were proposing something like participatory budgeting based on the extensive municipal practice pioneered in Brazil, where citizens actually had at least a bit of control over some funds to improve services, then maybe the goal of true community involvement could be attained. But without a radical revision of how local government allocates resources, especially in a time of austerity, enticing local community support with monetary perks, as has been suggested, risks creating a claque of self-interested locals who, for whatever reason, pursue their agenda instead that of the community.
Civic engagement occurs for many reasons that need not entail comprehensive, centralized administration. The joy of working on a worthwhile project with one’s neighbors needs little stimulus from some bureaucrat in an office someplace. Encouragement to engage in larger projects is needed. Who will entice strangers to collaborate, so that they cease being “unknowns” and successfully engage in pursuit of meaningful activity? Having access to real power, the goal of participatory budgeting, may be the possible institutional avenue towards reviving civic life by creating significant, practical change people easily recognize.
Diverting the focus from the private economy to the public realm appears to be a pretty transparent attempt to change the subject. One suspects that both Labour and certainly the Conservatives have no idea how to salvage an economy that has been devastated by more than twenty years of neo-liberal practices. The UK for instance has lost manufacturing on a scale similar to the US. The recent Cadbury Chocolate take-over by Kraft Foods was just the last episode in a recurring story. The trade unions anticipate huge cuts in the 7,000 jobs so that Kraft’s heavily indebted exposure is repaired.
The recent closing of the only large turbine facility in Great Britain by its Danish owner without a response exposed Labour’s inability to think creatively about retaining manufacturing.
Creating a co-operative economy
While the politicians prepare their circus acts, the real news on economic matters in Great Britain comes from Scotland. There, a four year-old co-operative development group is successfully establishing employee-managed firms. This group can advise for a range of alternatives, from start-ups to employee buy-outs of firms ready for transition of ownership. Scottish government development funds finance them and over the years they have assisted a host of thriving firms and have gained valuable experience creating ventures that provide for economic sustainability.
If Labour (or the Conservatives) really wanted to tackle economic development and not simply pose with a half-baked idea, they would fund replications of Co-operative Development Scotland in all major British cities. This act alone would not solve all the problems of an economy facing the worst prospects in generations, but it is at least a start. It would be a real demonstration that there are alternatives to another financial bubble economy. And it would place the focus on local economic development as the prime response to strengthening initiatives to deal with climate change and food security issues.
Funding local co-operative development agencies should also be considered a viable program for the US to adopt. The Obama administration has restored Bush’s cutbacks to the Cooperative Rural Development Grant Program, and in the current budget will double its funds. This granting program has proved effective in strengthening rural economic development. The next step would be to create an urban equivalent maybe modeled after the Dept of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency. Co-op projects already underway in the Bronx, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago, to name the most prominent and recent examples, demonstrate the viability of this approach. Isn’t it time for the federal government to recognize these accomplishments and fund more of them?
Bernard Marszalek
info@jasecon.org
March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Ukiah's first barter market
Ukiah's first barter market: People trade goods and wares while getting a crash course on alternative currency
By MONICA STARK The Daily Journal
Updated: 03/08/2010 12:01:21 AM PST
In an effort to build social justice and get people what they need without them spending money, community members organized Ukiah's first ever barter market on Sunday at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse, which resulted in about 40 people becoming local Time Bank members. The idea is that for every hour Time Bank members spend doing something for someone in the Time Bank community, they earn one time dollar, which some people on Sunday spent on locally made goods, be it produce, jewelry or other crafts. Others plan on trading in their time dollars for a service they want. Some offerings included: bellydance instruction and horseback trail rides.
Those who became Time Bank members received a crash course on how this alternative economy can change the world by changing the money economy, which they argue, does not value the kind of work it takes to create healthy homes, families and communities.
Jenn Douthit, one of the presenters used baby sitting as an example that is not very valued in society, yet it's an "extremely needed skill."
In Time Banking all people's time is of equal value, she explained. "So whether you got your master's degree in English and you're editing a paper for someone for $5; or you are using a shovel to dig up someone's plants they don't want in their garden anymore-- that is equal time. So we don't value one person's skill over another occupation based on their education or opportunities. We're all spending the same amount of time to do it."
However, time dollars aren't intended to be a currency that replaces money, organizer Julia Frech explained. They are intended to create a means and incentive for people to help each other. "You would never tell your friend or neighbor, for example, if he needed help in some way, that: I'll help you for an hour now, if you help me for five hours later.' This would undoubtably create some resentment," Frech said.
One of the concerns about Time Bank systems is that it can weed out high demand jobs, such as lawyers or doctors, who need of a lot of education to get to where they are and who might be less likely to trade their services than a tutor or massage therapist.
Frech said that she's come across some literature that tells of doctors in other Time Banks who will see patients for time dollars. "To them, they feel good about serving those that don't have the means to pay them, and because the patients are still giving up something of value, they are more likely to heed the doctor's orders," Frech said.
She said that there hasn't been any targeted new member recruitment yet, but in the near future she is planning to approach organizations serving the needy, as well as professionals whose services tend to be well valued in the current economy. "I imagine those with lots of well paid work, if they do participate, will do so because they want to give back to their community, and a Time Bank is a great way to do that," she said.
Those who bartered goods for other goods on Sunday (rather than in exchange for time dollars), are required to file Form 1099-B and include all transactions to the Internal Revenue Service.
On the other hand, time dollars, Frech said, have been ruled tax exempt by the IRS. "(Because) an hour is always valued at one hour, there is no legal responsibility on anyone's part to redeem a time dollar, and the purpose of time dollars is charitable."
Items that were traded on Sunday in time dollars, followed a general rule, which was to charge time dollars (One time dollar = One hour) for the time it takes to make something, and money for the raw materials. Examples included handmade items and produce. Further, Frech explained that a Time Bank can't set an exchange rate between time dollars/hours and money, because if there were an equivalent, it would become taxable.
"This is one reason the Time Bank model is so attractive-- members are making a commitment to value people's time equally," she said.
Monica Stark can be reached at udjfeatures@pacific.net
By MONICA STARK The Daily Journal
Updated: 03/08/2010 12:01:21 AM PST
In an effort to build social justice and get people what they need without them spending money, community members organized Ukiah's first ever barter market on Sunday at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse, which resulted in about 40 people becoming local Time Bank members. The idea is that for every hour Time Bank members spend doing something for someone in the Time Bank community, they earn one time dollar, which some people on Sunday spent on locally made goods, be it produce, jewelry or other crafts. Others plan on trading in their time dollars for a service they want. Some offerings included: bellydance instruction and horseback trail rides.
Those who became Time Bank members received a crash course on how this alternative economy can change the world by changing the money economy, which they argue, does not value the kind of work it takes to create healthy homes, families and communities.
Jenn Douthit, one of the presenters used baby sitting as an example that is not very valued in society, yet it's an "extremely needed skill."
In Time Banking all people's time is of equal value, she explained. "So whether you got your master's degree in English and you're editing a paper for someone for $5; or you are using a shovel to dig up someone's plants they don't want in their garden anymore-- that is equal time. So we don't value one person's skill over another occupation based on their education or opportunities. We're all spending the same amount of time to do it."
However, time dollars aren't intended to be a currency that replaces money, organizer Julia Frech explained. They are intended to create a means and incentive for people to help each other. "You would never tell your friend or neighbor, for example, if he needed help in some way, that: I'll help you for an hour now, if you help me for five hours later.' This would undoubtably create some resentment," Frech said.
One of the concerns about Time Bank systems is that it can weed out high demand jobs, such as lawyers or doctors, who need of a lot of education to get to where they are and who might be less likely to trade their services than a tutor or massage therapist.
Frech said that she's come across some literature that tells of doctors in other Time Banks who will see patients for time dollars. "To them, they feel good about serving those that don't have the means to pay them, and because the patients are still giving up something of value, they are more likely to heed the doctor's orders," Frech said.
She said that there hasn't been any targeted new member recruitment yet, but in the near future she is planning to approach organizations serving the needy, as well as professionals whose services tend to be well valued in the current economy. "I imagine those with lots of well paid work, if they do participate, will do so because they want to give back to their community, and a Time Bank is a great way to do that," she said.
Those who bartered goods for other goods on Sunday (rather than in exchange for time dollars), are required to file Form 1099-B and include all transactions to the Internal Revenue Service.
On the other hand, time dollars, Frech said, have been ruled tax exempt by the IRS. "(Because) an hour is always valued at one hour, there is no legal responsibility on anyone's part to redeem a time dollar, and the purpose of time dollars is charitable."
Items that were traded on Sunday in time dollars, followed a general rule, which was to charge time dollars (One time dollar = One hour) for the time it takes to make something, and money for the raw materials. Examples included handmade items and produce. Further, Frech explained that a Time Bank can't set an exchange rate between time dollars/hours and money, because if there were an equivalent, it would become taxable.
"This is one reason the Time Bank model is so attractive-- members are making a commitment to value people's time equally," she said.
Monica Stark can be reached at udjfeatures@pacific.net
Monday, March 8, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
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.
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
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
Thursday, March 4, 2010
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
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
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