DO IT YOURSELF

Roman Around ^ | 6 December 2008 | Andrew Roman

[andrew roman]

With the economy riding a downward-arrow, and bailout talk getting more airplay then the Beatles did when they invaded in 1964, it may be time to trek to your friendly neighborhood office supply chain and stock up on ink jet cartridges and follow the lead of two Milwaukee, Wisconsin neighborhoods – that is, if the people there decide to follow through on a plan that will have eyebrows flexing John Belushi-style.

The plan?

To take matters into their own hands.

As they see it … When the going gets tough, the tough print their own money.

Really.

Funny money discussions are set to take place in East Side and Riverwest on Wednesday.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.

"You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store."

Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.

So then (I ask humbly) why not just offer a 10% discount on items in neighborhood stores instead?

(And don't think the little jab at Wal-Mart didn't go unnoticed)

First, I would assume that some sort of local regulation would have to be in order regarding the creation of the sham dough, lest home printers everywhere start churning out whatever amounts happen to fit the bill at the moment (pun intended). Plus (and call me naïve here, if you must) but how does the monopoly money help out when supplies from outside the perimeter are needed? What happens when shelves deplete?

And what about taxes that the local businesses have to pay to non-funny money tax collecting entities?

And if, as many contend, this local currency is merely going to serve the same purpose as "in-store shopping dollars" do at some establishments to spurn activity (like Chuck E Cheese dollars, for instance), can't the same thing be accomplished (as alluded to earlier) with price cuts?

Remember, delicious little "make it all better" theories sound wonderful in discussion, but this is the real world we live in.

Second, this faux-money chatter will prompt many to say, "So what? How about the money the government prints now? It isn't worth the paper it's printed on." (Inevitably, a back-and-forth about the dropping of the gold standard for currency ensues).

Still, I'd like to see someone - anyone - go to a bank and try to convince them to take the Epson inkjet money as a deposit.

As tough as things are, the last time I peeked, I could still take some of those "worth less than paper" greenbacks into any establishment in America and purchase a good or service.

It's not a new concept—experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world—but it is a practice that tends to burgeon during economic downturns. During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies.

And it's completely legal.

As long as communities don't create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks—and they'd don't even have to be green.

If simply printing up more money out of the blue is the elixir to the economic ills that plague this country, why not just have the Feds do the next best thing and pour a whole bunch of money into the system so that there's more and more of it out there.

Oh, wait ...

-

[JoanneSD]

How does this work? I can make my money at wal mart, but cannot spent their phoney monopoly money there...I think I will make and spend my money as I please...this is still the land of the free..

[JoanneSD]

How does this work? I can make my money at wal mart, but cannot spent their phoney monopoly money there...I think I will make and spend my money as I please...this is still the land of the free..

[tbw2]

Printing your own money and theoretically having your own economy is cute, but you have to find people willing to ACCEPT the new currency.
Honestly, barter is better. Not risking federal or state laws, except MAYBE taxes. Whether powdered food, cigarettes, bullets, diapers, bottles of bleach - there are things that would be accepted with universal value by almost anyone.
And with barter, those goods have value even if the local currency fails.