Feb 23

Written by:
2/23/2010 8:56 AM 

The first characterization of nondollar money is that it’s anything but funny. What it is, is endlessly fascinating. Money, as you know, trumps political theory, morals, religion, economics, and gunpowder. Money controls society the way blood controls the body. And that control resides with the issuer, just like the genie in the bottle said. Alternate currency is a poor name, instead try alternate existence. Also, you may want to think twice about entering into a study of money for if you start you will never finish. Take Tom Greco. He’s not finished yet, and I wish he would finish so he can end his serial bookage.

Vashon needs funny money primarily for the blood reason and also against hyperinflation. You see, we are already ill, and the flood of corruption from Wall Street, Pentagon and Congress here in Vashon is still a trickle. Illness symptoms divide into the physical and the mental. The long semis carting off wastewater and short semis carting off unprocessed solid waste are prominent lumps in the ferry lines, while the whole manifests the thoughtlessness of those who would move to an island then treat it as a motel room with maid service. Mentally, we attend to art but ignore things that the young need badly, and as corollary, ignore a subculture of drugs and homelessness. The dollar stands in the way of improvement for it suffocates island economics and engenders class disparities. Do not take my word for this, instead read Willliam Greider, Ellen Brown, Dmitry Orlov, Tom Greco, and Bernard Lietaer.

Not convinced, are you. That’s because funny money won’t get you diddly in the high tech consumer market. Worse, it wont fix a lot of things in your car. But funny money can get you healthcare and pretty soon the dollar will not. Funny money can get you food, and pretty soon the dollar will not. If you don’t buy that scenario, go find a better planet. Let’s take these in order.

The cost of health care is ramping up and the quality is ramping down, all because it’s provided by insurance and so can make money. Read dollars. Now suppose we have a local exchange that can accept labor as currency. This could offset a big portion of the cost. In fact, if we act quickly enough, capital investment of dollars in our medical structure could be converted into the local currency and possibly lead to total self-sufficient single payer care.

Our food is mostly trucked in. Imagine what will happen to the Thriftway prices when commercial real estate dies as projected, or when China pulls our chain, or when the house built of marked cards back East goes flat. Then our idle berry fields will start to look pretty good. You don’t think maybe we could live on what grows here, do you? What about maybe we try to find out? When we run out of venison we will gladly pull weeds. Okay, let’s quit beating around the bush. We and the rest of the country are shortly going to join the third world. I am going to go from 3 cars to 2 to 1 to none because I will not be able to afford insurance nor that new tranny. My social security is a porous rock of Gibraltar. What I mean is, you all are not acting on the obvious need for collective action on a sustainable island economy because you are denying the forecasts.

But the topic is funny money, not fate, so here’s something funny about money. Money does its job because of faith, faith in the specie metal, or faith in the issuer. Tom Greco does a good job of cataloging the many articles of faith that have been used as money: Grain deposit receipts. Donations to the Salvation Army, chits issued by a trusted merchant, signatures, and as many I did not understand at all. But take just one, membership in a complementary exchange. You accept a payment in its units because there’s an open ledger showing the account of the payer. Cumbersome, but it illustrates how a method of enabling trading can get a community of disparate individuals talking. All of a sudden, this island could roll up its sleeves and make do, provided only that we have smelled the cost of coffee and decided its time to reduce our dependence on the dollar.