The Usury-Free Currency Update, January 30, 2002

A.  ABERDEEN LETS WISELY SEEKS COUNCIL PARTICIPATION

From: SarahJane Moll  <sj@scotlandmail.com>
Subject: Councils/cash conversions

SJ: 1) I know this subject comes up on a regular basis, but I would greatly appreciate some practical advice on how to persuade Aberdeen City Council to join Aberdeen LETS!

JCT: 1) Yes! The best way is for Council to borrow and spend some LETS social credits on any useful project that is now not in the budget and accept it back in taxes at the end of the year. The amount taxes back always equals the amount first spent in public works so it has no effect on the federal cash budget. It only fills the budgetary gap.

SJ: 2) Have you managed to persuade any large businesses to join up?

JCT: 2) Calgary LETS persuaded City Council to make LETS units acceptable for public transit! Pretty good reason to want it. See next letter

SJ: 3) In order to stimulate trading, we'd like to request donations in cash, to be"converted" into Cassies. The idea would be that we could cover expenses that have to be paid in cash (bills, travel costs etc.) but we could encourage members to utilise the local currency (which many are still reluctant to do). Any thoughts and/or
experience?

SarahJane Moll - Aberdeen LETS http://welcome.to/aberdeen-lets

JCT: 3) In a sense, this is want the Toronto Dollar system did. It does not base its interest-free local currency on manpower or time but on cash. I call this the Sparta Effect. Exactly like a casino bank. They take in Federal cash for local currency, put the cash in the bank and use the interest to fund their system and operations. Not the best LETS but functional anyway.

B.  CALGARY ALBERTA LETS UPDATE

From: Gerald Wheatley <bcbc@calcna.ab.ca> Bow Chinook Barter Community
Subject: Bow Chinook Barter Community

GW: 1) There has been much activity here in Calgary over the last few months. Some of the highlights are:
- We are re-naming our currency Calgary Dollars and reprinting the notes to simplify and revitalize the project. This will be unveiled at the beginning of March.

JCT: 1) Good to hear. Make pretty notes and your system will benefit of the 100% when tourists buy in and keep them for souvenirs.

GW: 2) -My two co-workers are both leaving, one to work on G8 organizing for this June near Calgary, the other to do local economics work in Indonesia. Anyone out there want a local currency job in Calgary, Alberta?

JCT: 2) I hope the guy going to Indonesia gets in touch with the LETS people there. He could always help out there.

GW: 3) - We confirmed core funding from the United Way for the next three years, an unprecedented level of stability for us.

JCT: 3) Wow. A great example for the rest of the country.

GW: 4) - We created a compilation cd of social justice music for sale for 100% local currency and sold out the 1000 copies in the month before Xmas.  http://cd.activist.ca and obtained considerable radio and print
attention for local currency.

- A nonprofit housing association has begun accepting local currency for up to $20 per month of the rent payment from its 120 tenants in five buildings

JCT: 4) Wow. Wow. Again. Great news. Great innovations.

GW: 5) - Car sharing is continuing to grow in Calgary and accepts 20% local currency

JCT: 5) First time I've ever heard of this. Makes sense. Guys with cars could be giving rides to mothers of their mechanics to the doctor instead of the mechanic having to leave work to do it himself. Transport is one service that LETS hasn't really yet fully exploited.

GW: 6) - The City of Calgary renewed and doubled the number of transit tickets available for local currency. The proceeds from last years sales went to buy 100% local currency haircuts for women and children in a crisis shelter at a local hair salon. Best wishes for the coming year.

Gerald Wheatley - Bow Chinook Barter Community www.bcbc.ab.ca

JCT: 6) Thank you Gerald Wheatley for brightening many a LETSers's day with the potential uses of LETS many, including me, had never even thought of.

C.  LONDON ONTARIO LETS EXCHANGE

From: Wolfgang Vincenti <cdfacilitator@yahoo.ca>
Subject: LETS
To: lwhite@becon.org Cc: viclets@islandnet.com; jcturmel@aol.com

WV: 1) I would like to introduce myself. My name is Wolfgang and I am the Community Development Facilitator at the London Community Resource Centre. We are making a business plan for the LETS. Our official name by the way is London LETS Exchange. In the business plan we are look at how the project can be self-sustaining. I wanted to ask how does your LETS project sustain itself. Where does most of the revenue come from? Is it from: Membership fees, trade fairs, service charges, or transaction charges?

JCT: 1) I've never worried about it because I've always trading with tokens rather than trading with accounting transactions. When I founded my Abolitionist Party of Canada, every member started with a loan of $500 Greendollars and a credit line of G$3000. At 10G$/hour, that was the equivalent of 50 Greenhours in tokens. Just like when I operate my gambling casino, by issuing everyone lots of chips, most of which remain unused at home in their bedroom drawer, like most of mine, and only carry the necessary number, I don't have to open my
cage but every few months and have no accounting to do in between.

In the Ithaca Time token system, everyone starts with the equivalent of 4 Greenhours. Such funding problems only arise in low-velocity systems that register every transaction. They get all the benefits of good statistics but paying through the nose for essentially cosmetic information. More primitive paper, plastic, metal tokens work
virtually free. I use the word Green in denoting interest-free social community credits but Michael Linton and I were both members of the Green Party of Canada when we collaborated on the LETS software back in 1984 and even though I was ejected from the Party for promoting LETS without our Leader's authorization, I still think of any kind of interest-free social credits and green credits. Full of life. Rather than interest-bearing mort-gage anti-social credits full of death.

WV: 2)  Does your LETS getting funding from the government or any sort of corporate sponsorship.

JCT: 2) Any LETS could but once the local currency is spendable everywhere, why not fund with the local currency itself? Most people will only need federal currency for out-of-town transactions anyway.

WV: 3) Could you also share some ideas on how to recruit members from the community and the business sector? How do you encourage the members to trade so that the accounts are more active? Thank you

Wolfgang Vincenti, Community Development Facilitator
London Community Resource Centre
388 Dundas St. 2nd Floor London, Ontario N6B 1V7
Bus:(519)432-1801 Fax.(519)432-6299

JCT: 3) There's no need to encourage when everyone in town accepts local currency as currency. Just let the city borrow some, spend it and then accept it in taxes to pay it back, interest-free, and everyone in town
will then want it too. Like Calgary Council has made Calgary Greendollars valuable in the eyes of everyone who rides transit, their friends and merchants who know they'll take it too! Make the tokens worth real value and service, without interest, and everything works flawlessly with no further direction.

D. INFO ON FOREIGN LETS

From: Catherine  <CBOULOC@aol.com>
Subject: [informations-SEL] TURMEL: Toulouse University Student LETS

CB: 1) As I am highly interested in becoming a member, Would you be kind enough in telling me how to applicate for this FOREIGN LETS.
Regards Catherine 

JCT: 1) I like to call a world-wide LETS UNILETS because it makes sense the UN coordinate the network. But people in France are very fortunate because the paper precursor to the Internet LETS I envisage is your
JEU bank account booklets. The JEU people realized that there was no need for everyone to have to contact the central computer to register transactions, too much like real usury banks, when everyone could carry their own bank account books with them and both parties can initial each transaction with no need for central processing at all.

So anyone sets up a public IOU Time system, operates it themselves, just like everyone operated their JEU bank books. Having always promoted physical tokens as a cheap and free time accounting system, I had never really spent much time in contemplation of low-velocity systems, let alone 1-velocity systems where every transaction is
recorded. So it was with great pleasure that I realized that a 1-velocity model was most compatible with the Internet since accounting for every transaction with an email LETS is as close to free token accounting as you can get.

E. PROF. BLAINE'S UPDATED TIME-MONEY SITE

From:  Dr. Robert Blain <rblain@siue.edu>
Subject: Dr. Robert Blaine money web site

RB: 1) You might want to check out my new web site about Hour Money for all monies of the world. Paul Glover has put a long version at www.ithacahours.com/blain.html  My new site is http://webpages.charter.net/rblain/hourmoney.htm
Bob Blain

JCT: 1) Done. The more University Professors who have the temerity to back interest-free Time Money now, the better.

F. TIMECURRENCY FOR WORLD PEACE?

From: Graham Irwin <graham@compassion-in-business.co.uk>
Subject: [ijccr] World Peace Research
To: ijccr@yahoogroups.com, timebanksuk@yahoogroups.com ("tbuk")
 
GI: 1) Hi - I hope this doesn't seem like too strange a request for this list, but I believe complementary currencies are part of the solution to world peace...

JCT: 1) It's not "complementary" currencies that are part of the solution to world peace, it's interest-free currencies competing with enslaving interest-bearing ones that are part of the solution. The most and only
indispensable part. And the whole solution to world peace is a world-wide UNILETS interest-free currency.

GI: 2) I am researching for a new book on the subject of world peace and the aftermath of September 11th and would welcome any comments you may have on the subject. Whatever your views - whether you have something positive to contribute or you think I'm a crackpot - they will be greatly valued.

JCT: 2) I've been called a crack-pot but persevered despite it because I believe that "quitters never win and winners never quit" and "he who laughs last laughs best." 

GI: 3) Your comments may be made anonymously or otherwise at www.peace4all.co.uk or emailed to webmaster@peace4all.co.uk I encourage you to forward this email to friends and colleagues. Many
Thanks Graham Irwin

JCT: 3) Many thanks for your perspective. I've had the same global vision of an interest-free world since I first pierced the veil of monetary mystery by discovering Shift B inflation back in 1979. You can't have world peace while you have world poverty. Poverty must be switched off
first. See www.cyberclass.net/turmel/biglie.htm

John C. "The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel, Author of the UNILETS interest-free time-based currency United Nations C6 recommendation toGovernments in the  www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm   
www.cyberclass.net/turmel & www.medpot.net Tel: 1.613.632.2334

Amen to Jubilee in 2000 with L.E.T.S. interest-free bank accounts for all. If saving the planet from usurious debt does not interest you, mail to: turmel-unsubscribe@egroups.com to unsubscribe.

G. ARGENTINA'S RGT (RED GLOBAL DE TRUEQUE)

From: Tommy-Usury: Free <tom@cyberclass.net>
Subject: Argentia is creating a model which can be used locally, nationally and internationally
To: turmel@yahoogroups.com

TJK: 1) Professor Ruth Pearson (Leeds, England) has written a very good article entitled: 'Common currencies for social change, from Buenos Aires to Chapel Allerton' about the explosive growth of 'usury-free' community currencies in Argentina AND John 'The Engineer' Turmel makes a good critique of her article - with additional comments. www.cyberclass.net/argentinajct.htm
Braov! Tommy-Usury: Free

JCT: 1) Indeed, 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) usury-bearing time-enslaving economy going bust while 1/s usury-free time-truequing economy booming in Argentina.

Read more about Argentina's RGT at The Argentina Cyberclassroom:  www.cyberclass.net/argentina.htm

Other Links:

The Most Recent 100 Edits at The Project LETS List:
http://lentils.imagineis.com/cgi-bin/letslist/letsedits.cgi?range=100

James Taris Has created LETS-Linkup: www.lets-linkup.com

Canada LETS-Linkup: www.lets-linkup.com/77-Canada.htm