Majoritatea materialelor pe aceasta tema le-am strans in primavara, dar se pare ca de atunci lucrurile au inceput sa prinda amploare. Cel mai frumos lucru este ca pe langa nemti, canadieni sau japonezi, au intrat in joc si americanii:
Local currencies cash in on recession
A few dozen local businesses banded together this spring to distribute the Plenty -- a local currency intended to replace the dollar. Now 15,000 Plenties are in circulation here, used everywhere from the organic food co-op to the feed store to, starting this month, the Piggly Wiggly supermarket.
Pittsboro, population 2,500, is one of a handful of communities that launched its own money in recent months. It reports an avalanche of calls from other communities that have lost faith in the global financial system.
In Detroit, for example, the Cheer was created not due to the city's chronic financial woes but because bar owner Jerry Belanger wanted to encourage patrons to support new local businesses. He issued notes good at neighborhood merchants, backed by a cash reserve at his bar. The idea caught on fast, and other taverns agreed to help back the currency. There are now $3,000 worth of Detroit Cheers in circulation after about four months.
In Mesa, Ariz., a city of 450,000 east of Phoenix, the motive has been purely financial. The city has no property tax and relies almost exclusively on its sales tax for revenue. Receipts plummeted 12.5% in the last quarter of 2008. Thus Mesa Bucks were born.
The western New York college town of Ithaca is believed to be the first community in recent memory to have revived scrip by starting the Ithaca Hour in 1991. Other places, including Portland, Maine, and Traverse City, Mich., followed suit.
In western Massachusetts, activists and a local nonprofit banded together in 2006 to create the BerkShare.
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