JCT: Heloisa Primavera E: primaver@c... is a founder of 
the largest private LETS time-truequing network in the world, the Red 
Global de Trueque.  
     A few posts ago, I sent along the New York Times article 
about interest-free barter networks in Argentina. I knew I've heard 
you have over half a million members but that cannot count the people 
who use your paper creditos without being members, much like many 
people around Ithaca New York accept Ithaca Hours without living in 
Ithaca because they or a friend can redeem them in Ithaca. Same thing. 
So if you have half a million who have opened accounts to issue LETS 
paper creditos into circulation, I'd have to guess a substantial 
percentage more people use your system for free. Which is not only 
fine, it's great advertising. 

     Now I've found another great article on your Argentinian LETS 
model at http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/473/s4.htm

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
The Reporter
Issue 473, 19 November 2001

Leeds University Reporter Issue 473 19 November 2001
http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/473/s4.htm

Common currencies for social change, from Buenos Aires to Chapel 
Allerton 

Money makes the world go round - we may not like it, but there's no 
getting away from it. Or is there? By using money simply as a means of 
exchange, it becomes separated from the idea of wealth, and can be 
used to alleviate poverty and strengthen communities. Development 
studies professor Ruth Pearson had been looking at barter systems 
using alternative currencies in Buenos Aires and is now introducing a 
similar system into a very different context - Chapel Allerton, north 
Leeds.

     JCT: At my world-wide master list of LETS electronic connections 
at http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/urlsnat.htm can be found the 
section from the UK:
Leeds http://members.xoom.com/leedslets/ 
E: LETS@L... T:01132487704
     So Leeds already has a timetrading software being used. All the 
professor has to do is join the current one or start another.  

Professor Ruth Pearson (right) was invited to Argentina with a film 
team from the Open University to see the country's global exchange 
network first-hand. Although alternative currency schemes operate with 
different degrees of success elsewhere in both the northern and 
southern hemispheres, Argentina is the only country where the network 
has taken off to such an extent that it now boasts nearly a quarter of 
a million members and has an estimated turnover of $1billion.

     JCT: Okay, maybe quarter million with accounts and a quarter 
million free?

Professor Pearson explains why the system has proved so popular: 
"Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in South America, with 
an established professional class. However, severe economic problems 
and the decimation of the welfare state have left many people 
unemployed and outside the mainstream economy, with no means of 
support. The barter network offered survival, and so has quickly 
spread throughout the country."

     JCT: No one's ever put it so well before. In Australia, Canada, 
USA, it's called a lifeboat even though everyone there really doesn't 
think their life is really at risk. In countries with no social safety 
nets where lives really are at risk, those LETS lifeboats do offer 
real "survival." The best example is from Edgar Cahn's first 
Timedollar book where he mentions the nuns in El Paso Texas set it up 
for their poor new mothers so they could pay poor old mothers to show 
them how to take care of their new babies and child mortality, as 
expected from a survival lifeboat, went down! My all time favorite 
success story!

Set up originally by sustainable development activists as a 
neighbourhood barter club, the network now covers 15 of the 23 
provinces and is made up of 500 federated exchange systems. Each 
region or province can print its own currency (see picture below) - in 
Buenos Aires these are called creditos. Each local group or nodo holds 
its own weekly market and from time to time they come together in 
larger regional markets. The Buenos Aires market is pictured left.

     JCT: Many of their Argentinian state governments also print their 
own currencies and as long as your private interest-free creditos 
systems support public interest-free government creditos systems, you 
will both eventually pull through. It's only a matter of time until 
the Time-Truequers accept government creditos and Government accept 
Time-Truequers creditos back! All the fiasco we now see on TV has to 
do with the failing federal interest bearing (1/(s-i)) system which 
can only help the succeeding provincial and private interest-free 1/s 
systems that are thriving.  
     And yet, other than my posts, all the world ever hears about 
Argentina is of the collapse of the "federal currency" economy. 
     1/s interest-free time-truequing economy booming in Argentina.
     1/(s-i) interest-bearing time-enslaving economy going bust. 
     With 500 towns covered in 15 provinces, what are the odds that 
I'd have to pay with cash for accommodations if I visited? When I 
visited 11 countries in Europe over 40 days, I only had to pay for a 
hotel 1 night paying for 39 nights in 22 towns with time-truequing 
LETSers for Hours delivered by Email at the end of my trip at a rate 
of 5 Hours per night for a private room. 
     I would venture that anyone going to Argentina might be wise to 
join their local LETS and try to avoid the 1/(s-i) federal currency 
economy. Who knows when the hotel room might jump from 100 pesos to 
100 while you're in the sauna? But your Hours earned in your home town 
will always be worth the hours earned in any Argentinian home town. 

Anyone can join a nodo, so long as they attend two meetings to learn 
about the system and agree to abide by trading rules. People set their 
own prices and the currency is not for accumulation, but purely for 
trade. New members are given 50 creditos - equivalent to around $50 - 
to begin trading.

     JCT: Too bad about their currency not being for accumulation. It 
could act as exchange function and savings function too. There's no 
reason to ban accumulation of savings with creditos too. 
     And it's a nice touch giving everyone a certain grant of credits 
like in Ithaca rather than borrowing those sums. This practice has 
sometimes been condemned but once again, this demonstrates that as 
long as the conditions are the same for everyone, whether everyone 
takes out an initial 50 credits or everyone borrows out an initial 50 
credits, makes no difference. But why have people start in debt when 
they can all start in credit if it doesn't matter? Better PR. 

The idea is very simple but it's proved a lifeline to hundreds of 
thousands of Argentinians. The markets are full of stalls selling food 
and consumables, but there are also lawyers, dentists, hairdressers 
and even masseurs, some of whom come in solidarity, but many who would 
otherwise find no means of marketing their services.

     JCT: Sounds a little different than the LETS markets in most 
First World countries where they've aimed at keeping LETS small. It's 
more like a little social function than a life-and-death economic 
enterprise. And that's because, as it shows, those who would find no 
means of marketing their services in the federal currency world do so 
in the time-currency world where no banker needs validate your time. 

The system has even gained official support, as Professor Pearson 
explains: "In many countries, governments perceive alternative 
currencies as a threat. However, in Argentina the government is 
realising that the network can keep many people above starvation 
level, and provide a stepping stone back into the mainstream economy. 

     JCT: Not many countries have the government treated LETS 
time-truequing as a threat. Only in France and Thailand. Actually, New 
Zealand, Australia, United States, Canada, Britain, European 
Parliaments have all supported local currencies with grants and 
exemptions from federal currency welfare regulations. These 
Parliaments have just never contemplated using the same local software 
to run their national currencies in the same way and seem satisfied 
with the current banking system software that keeps breaking down. Let 
alone considering an international UN managed global timetoken system.

The government is providing technical support to help new businesses 
be set up by people currently only able to function within the 
networks, and also some local government taxes can be paid with 
creditos. Other mainstream businesses help out by donating unused 
stock or food, or by accepting creditos as part payment. Even Buenos 
Aires taxi drivers can sometimes be paid by creditos!"

     JCT: The big breakthrough. The moment government taxes can be 
paid with creditos, they become acceptable to the population as a 
whole! What government though? I've heard of the odd council that 
accepts LETS money for minor things but never for taxes, the all time 
best stimulus to local currency activity. 

But Professor Pearson's interest isn't just academic. She believes 
it's important to get involved on a practical level, and for this 
reason got in touch with a community group in Leeds to see if they'd 
be interested in starting a similar system here. Community Action Link 
in Chapel Allerton held its first barter market earlier this month 
(pictured below), but Professor Pearson stresses that although the 
system is similar, the two can't be said to work for the same ends.
"You can never replicate schemes, but you can be inspired by them and 
adapt them to different situations and conditions. It is important to 
understand the context in which they will have to work. 

     JCT: Maybe when they're starving and rioting in the streets in 
Britain will their Stockport Council-dubbed "LETS anti-poverty system" 
mean more than just a theory but the only means of survival. Then will 
more people jump ship to the LETS lifeboats ready and waiting to be 
used. 

"In Argentina, the system is about alleviating poverty and giving 
people a way to gain value from their skills or goods - acting as a 
safety net because there's no welfare provision. Although there's 
poverty in Leeds as well, the system of benefits and entitlement means 
that the unemployed can't easily participate in alternative trading. 
Instead, the network is about creating a sense of community and 
solidarity, about looking at different ways that money can function, 
and about recycling rather than just throwing away."

     JCT: That too bad that they can't easily participate in Leeds 
because they get government money. I thought that the British 
government were making it easier for people to join their Local Agenda 
21 LETS, not harder. Then again, government often does the opposite of 
its stated pretext of intent. But it's a problem with the government 
rule, not the system. 
     Again, LETS timecurrency has proven to be the only method 
existing in the world of "alleviating poverty" and "acting as a safety 
net." There is only one anti-poverty system in the world and that's 
the one that ends poverty, not any that alleviate it. The only way to 
end poverty is to end the lack of money! Usury causes lack of money by 
demanding return of 11 for 10. Ending usury equalizes money and debt 
for permanent stability! But at least any search of the web for anti-
poverty brings everyone to the LETS solution. 
     Why am I the only person in the world trumpeting the good news 
coming out of Argentina? With people now being shot in the streets 
over financial considerations, I must once again repeat the good news 
about how nearer to the solution you in Argentina are than anyone else 
in the world.
     Appendix A, B, and C are the three articles in my "Argentina 
resorts to UNILETS "bond-currency" series which relay the goods news 
of the new provincial currency called "Patacons" that are now being 
issued by the province of Buenos Aires to pay government workers, soon 
to be copied by other provinces. This would probably include the 
province of Salta which led the way as six provinces did use their own 
provincial currencies in the mid 1980s to pay for government services 
and should be quite adept at doing it again. 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turmel/message/776 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turmel/message/779 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turmel/message/785

     If you search for "Argentina" you'll find all sorts of 
discussions but basic idea is that if the central government can't run 
their money system right, run your own local currency and software. 
     Appendix D is my Dec. 15 article "New York Times: LETS currency 
in Argentina," 
http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2001/05/06/844972.xml
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turmel/message/868

     There are many things I could counsel your millions of time-
truequers to do to help get your nation out of its financial misery. 
Only two are important.  
     1) Parliament adopt the Time Standard of Money. 
     How much is one average "adult" Hour worth in federal currency? 
How much time does your money most often on average buy? Pick a number 
to start and don't worry about the rest. In the US, it's $10 = 1 Hour!
     2) Then make all debts payable in Time creditos, especially the 
Government's debt with its own interest-free time-creditos. Pay off 
and stabilize all interest-bearing debts so all future payments go 
against principal. You want governments out of debt fastest so you pay 
no more taxes for interest on government debt!

     Finally, I don't have the list of 500 branches to publish at my 
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/urlsnat.htm world LETS list yet. But 
Professor Pearson says she believes there are over 500 and I'm going 
to believe Professor Pearson. 
     But, Heloisa, if you have that list, the quicker you get it up on 
the master list is the sooner the day some importer or exporter asks 
if his counterpart in Germany or France can join and can they do some 
exchanges through your network! As long as the federal one has broken 
down. 
     It's nice that you can take over the federal currency's function 
from the banks in your country but you may as well go to take over 
join the international currency function from them too if they're 
breaking down anyway. So until someone finally does produce a 
complete database like the Italians just did, 300 new branches popping 
onto LETSNET overnight, I'll just post a link to the Professor's 
attestation. 
     But I sure would love the whole list of towns with web sites, if 
there, email if there, and finally, at least telephone. 
     My problem is that the list is now so large that checking the net 
for new ones is much work. Just today, I found three new connections 
in Slovakia when there had previously been one. I'm not sure if I used 
the right city names but the emails train-tracks go to the right place 
even if the signs says it's going somewhere else. 

     I am sending copies of this information to a whole of list of 
latin connections who have been discussing Argentina's financial woes. 
So before you, Heloisa Primavera, a founder of one of the world's 
largest non-government local currencies, I will make claims that: 

1) Having professed Banking Systems Engineering for 22 years, I 
derived the equation for interest-free currencies: 1/s and the 
equation for unemployment and inflation caused by interest rates 
(I/(P+I). See the only engineering analysis on banking systems in the 
world at http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/bankmath.htm

2) I made the keynote speech to the the United Nations recommendation 
in Millennium Declaration, C6 to governments that an interest-free 
UNILETS alternative time-based currency be used to restructure the 
global financial architecture which was subsequently adopted in the
http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UNILETS/message/1

3) I was the financial angel behind Michael Linton's development of 
the LETS interest-free local currency software. 

4) I have promoted usury-free financing in a Guinness Record "most 
elections contested." 

     I hope that your network proves to be the model your nation uses 
to pull itself away from the financial precipice. But all it takes is 
enacting a law adopting the time standard of money and making time 
money the national medium of exchange which becomes instantly 
compatible with time money exchanges all over the world. 
     As for the philosophers debating what is going wrong, I ask you 
to spend more time looking at what is going right. 
     Once again, the news is: 
     1/(s-i) interest-bearing time-enslaving economy going bust while
1/s interest-free time-truequing economy booming in Argentina.

--
John C. "The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel, Author of the UNILETS
interest-free time-based currency United Nations C6 recommendation to
Governments in the  http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm    
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel / http://www.medpot.net 613.632.2334