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Adventures in mutual credit

Ego

I want to save the world.
To see the flag of peace unfurled!
I hurt too when via my screens
Come gangs and drugs and pregnant teens,
Black potbelly-babies, bombs and shit;
Besuited leaders, don't get it,
They huff and puff and blow hot air;
When real change is just to share!
And when they catch that subtle light,
They will know that I am right!
They'll give me thanks one day
For showing them the only way.
One day I'll make them effing see
What's best for them is more of me.

  • By matslats at 05/11/2013 - 18:44

Community Currencies Tutorial for European Commission

write a short engaging/actionable text (approx. 2 pages long) as a sort of tutorial/step-by-step instruction on starting a complementary currency system for EC Responding Together programme

If a community currency was simply a printed note or an accounting system, then you could make a 1 2 3 recipe for starting one in your community, like boiling an egg. However this approach is unlikely to succeed, because a currency is more than just tokens and symbols.

  • By matslats at 04/25/2013 - 08:34

Captured! Why money and payment must be open.

Since the dot com boom, online services have been delivered 'free' by venture capitalised projects to acclimatise and capture a user base before the real, revenue-generating business model kicks in. For services which depend for their value on the number of users it is especially important to arrive early in the marketplace with an attractive product.

Consider Facebook - the fact of all your friends being already on Facebook makes leaving like venturing out into the wilderness.

  • By matslats at 04/22/2013 - 17:19

Volksgeld, Nazism and political bridge-burning

In response to: http://leconomistamascherato.blogspot.com/2013/03/germany-money-to-peopl...

Dear Mr Huber,

The decision of your committee seems very short-sighted to me as a non-German. The Nazis did many depraved things but we would do well to learn from their monetary policy if we wanted to execute say, a green new deal or reduce our subservience to private banking interests. Of course communicating with the electorate requires care with language, but the cause of monetary reform will get nowhere without also educating the electorate.

  • By matslats at 03/19/2013 - 18:01

Design for Dane County Time Bank, USA

Dane County Time Bank has been run by Stephanie Rearick for several years and is now up to 2500 members. Madison Hours has been less successful, but Stephanie believes that together they offer a valuable combination. Stephanie plans to bring them together into a dual currency marketplace where businesses, nonprofits and ordinary folk can exchange without money - the new system will be greater than the sum of its parts.

  • By matslats at 03/08/2013 - 20:30

I love money

I love money
It makes me feel safe.
I like to keep it, to own it.
I also like buying things
I hate it when I'm in debt and I have to pay interest. Its not fair!
But when I have enough money, I can live from interest.
Then I'll be sitting pretty.
Then I won't have to work.
Then I can grow old and die with dignity.
I'd be destitute without money.
I love money.

  • By matslats at 01/16/2013 - 00:00

My first currency design

For the first time I have helped to design a currency! With LETS and Time banks, the currency model is pretty straight-forward mutual credit with minimum and maximum account limits. Then more often than not there is an issuing account which gradually runs out of control and they are running a fiat system more than a mutual credit.

The founder of the O-share had joined a cooperative cafe arising out of the Israeli protest movement of 2011 with the expressed intention of starting a currency.

  • By matslats at 01/15/2013 - 23:36

Workshop game 'Trading floor'

This game is designed to show participants in workshops
  1. how trade is affected by the availability of money
  2. how outside control of the money supply may be counter productive to a local economy
  3. how money is separate from real value
  4. how using debt as money can obstruct the economy

By simulating trading in an actual marketplace, the traders feel the difference, which reinforces the learning objectives.

  • By matslats at 11/25/2012 - 14:45

Rolling Jubilee - will it work?

The Rolling Jubilee campaign is raising money to buy up cheap debt and forgive it.

I wrote to them asking
1) Who will sell you debt for pennies on the dollar?
2) Who's debt will you buy?
3) Don't you think the price will go up if the campaign gets traction?
4) is there a way that we can buy the debt of people we care about?
5) By purchasing the debt, you legitimise it, and the whole system that created it.

Why not a campaign of solidarity and support for debtors and people who default?

  • By matslats at 11/10/2012 - 11:47

Why bitcoin isn't enough.

Bitcoin is a super way for frictionless transactions and for disassociating ourselves from the fraud, waste, and centralised control of commercial credit and legal tender monies. Most techies working on monetary solutions seem to think that the ideal currency is a globally uniform, frictionless unit in which transactions are quickly settled, with anonymity an arguably desirable trait.

  • By matslats at 10/31/2012 - 23:05
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