[wsfii-discuss] Worldchanging article on Complementary currencies

Wed Oct 5 16:50:24 UTC 2005

Mamading Ceesay wrote:

>>The (inherently) political aspects of 'free' infrastructures
>>(accidently?) come clearer now.
>>    
>>
>
>Really?  Please enlighten us.
>  
>
We're already talking about it.
Some negative aspects of the existing money system were shown by
creating an alternative. The Lime was a local limited (in validity of
place and time) currency, where it would be hard and almost useless to
create a loan/interest rate system around it.
The local event created a little local welth. Would the Lime still exist
and only be accepted in SE London, the chances would be good that people
could exchange goods and services without watching their currency drain
into global markets (aka investment funds, etc.)
So there's this 'free' (or 'other', 'new') currency. But it stands
against the usual, official money system.
If this currency would be more successfull i'm sure the government would
not allow to use it. That's what i call a political aspect.

>Having a positive interest rate on money creates a hoarding effect. 
>Those who have a substantial amount of it do their best to get more
>and hold on to it, which the system is set up to do so the rich get
>richer and so on.  Now if you have a negative interest rate (aka
>demurrage) things get interesting, there is a strong incentive to
>spend the money rather than hold onto it.
>  
>
Yes, with a small negative interest rate you'd rather spend it than
loosing it, but if you save for a big future spending, (i.e. a house)
the small loss would not be big enough to prevent you from saving.
The other positive effect of this would be that in times where money's
cheap, interest rates are low, the effective interest rate for money is
balanced to zero. (which today magically never happens)

--hl