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New age town in U.S. embraces dollar alternative
Reuters ^ | 19 Jun 07 | Scott Malone

Posted on 06/19/2007 7:03:48 AM PDT by Barney Gumble

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.

So it is fitting that the artist's face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

"I just love the feel of using a local currency," said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who used BerkShares to buy a snack at a cafe in Great Barrington, a town of about 7,400 people. "It keeps the profit within the community."

There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

In their 10 months of circulation, they've become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.

Named for the local Berkshire Hills, BerkShares are accepted in about 280 cafes, coffee shops, grocery stores and other businesses in Great Barrington and neighboring towns, including Stockbridge, the town where Rockwell lived for a quarter century.

"BerkShares are cash, and so people have transferred their cash habits to BerkShares," said Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society, a nonprofit group that set up the program. "They might have 50 in their pocket, but not 150. They're buying their lunch, their coffee, a small birthday present."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: barrington; berkshares; currency; hippies; hippiesstink; peacecreeps; treehuggers
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This should be interesting to watch. Either eventually, people will get tired of the fake currency and lose interest, thus leaving people with worthless money... or the town government will print more for festivals and such, and the money will become so inflated that business have to jackup how much they charge. (inflation at work).

Ithaca tried this with their "Ithaca dollars" but I think it went nowhere.

1 posted on 06/19/2007 7:03:52 AM PDT by Barney Gumble
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To: Barney Gumble

Sounds stupid. Why use money that doesn’t work beyond your own borders and isn’t as solid as the US dollar? Stupid hippies.


2 posted on 06/19/2007 7:06:01 AM PDT by SmoothTalker
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To: Barney Gumble
Hmmmm - how easy to is it to counterfeit it?

And that would be BREAKING NO LAWS...

3 posted on 06/19/2007 7:06:18 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: Barney Gumble
Sounds like a really good marketing plan than a true alternate currency. Neat idea.
4 posted on 06/19/2007 7:07:17 AM PDT by DManA
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To: Barney Gumble

Ithaca hours are still in circulation and have been since 1991.

Read the rest of the article you posted and it will list multiple cities that are doing the same thing.


5 posted on 06/19/2007 7:07:33 AM PDT by TexasGunLover ("Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists."-- President George W. Bush)
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To: Barney Gumble

Don’t tell me, the town also boasts a wise-cracking mother and daughter and romantic entanglements with the owner of the local cafe...


6 posted on 06/19/2007 7:07:49 AM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: Barney Gumble

I think it is more about supporting small local business over large chains.

Interesting to watch yes....I wonder what they will do when they decide not to use them anymore.


7 posted on 06/19/2007 7:09:44 AM PDT by ThisLittleLightofMine
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To: SmoothTalker

I wonder if my Monopoly money would be any good up there.


8 posted on 06/19/2007 7:10:34 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: Barney Gumble

For any of you Nevadans out there, who was the third-party candidate for Governor in Nevada, I think in the 1970s, who ran on a platform of a silver-backed Nevada currency, citing casino gaming chips as proof that alternate currencies can work? He was like a meteorite. He flamed for a short period and then completely disappeared. I can’t seem to come up with a winning combo of google search terms to pull up his name. Anybody remember him?

(In his defense, whoever he was, I’m pretty sure he did specify that the new currency would be backed by silver, unlike the town script of this story.)


9 posted on 06/19/2007 7:10:42 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: durasell
the town also boasts a wise-cracking mother and daughter and romantic entanglements with the owner of the local cafe...

hmmm, now why does that sound an awful lot like some crappy show my wife watches..

10 posted on 06/19/2007 7:12:40 AM PDT by SwankyC
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To: Barney Gumble

looks to me like it is the foolish businesses who accept this crap at par get screwed.....

“One day, you decide to go out for a nice dinner. You go to the bank to purchase BerkShares to spend at a local restaurant. You go in with 90 federal dollars and exchange them for 100 BerkShares. You go to dinner, and the total cost comes to $100. The restaurant accepts BerkShares in full, so you pay entirely in BerkShares. Therefore, you’ve spent 90 federal dollars and recieved a $100 meal - a ten percent discount for you. The owner of the restaurant now has 100 BerkShares. They decide that they need to deposit them for federal dollars and return them to the bank. When they bring them to the bank, the banker deposits the 100 BerkShares you spent on dinner and gives the restaurant $90 federal dollars, the same 90 dollars that you had originally exchanged for BerkShares. The end result? You recieve a ten percent discount because of the initial exchange, but the same $90 you originally traded for BerkShares all goes to the business where you spent those BerkShares.”

found at
http://www.berkshares.org/localcurrency.htm


11 posted on 06/19/2007 7:15:10 AM PDT by Vn_survivor_67-68
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To: SwankyC

This kinda sounds very illegal.


12 posted on 06/19/2007 7:16:24 AM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: SwankyC

The long suppressed final episode of the show has the entire town turning against the two and beating them to bloody pulps in the town square with ball peen hammers and axe handles.


13 posted on 06/19/2007 7:17:51 AM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: Barney Gumble

Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution:

Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

It applies to states, and I’m sure their cities as well.


14 posted on 06/19/2007 7:21:48 AM PDT by Terabitten (Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets - E-Frat '94. Unity and Pride!)
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To: massgopguy
This kinda sounds very illegal.

No , this practice is legal just as that pizza chain in Texas that accepts Mexican Pesos is also not breaking the law.

15 posted on 06/19/2007 7:23:33 AM PDT by trumandogz
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To: massgopguy

Why, what would be illegal about it? Should it be illegal if I trade with someone, for example, a power drill set for a lawnmower?


16 posted on 06/19/2007 7:25:10 AM PDT by oblomov
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To: SmoothTalker
"Stupid hippies."

That says it all.

17 posted on 06/19/2007 7:26:20 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Amnesty….NO MEANS NO!)
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To: Terabitten

This is not a violation of Art. I, Sec 10 due to the fact that the “currency” in not being printed by the state or any government. Instead, it is being printed by a private organization made up of local merchants.


18 posted on 06/19/2007 7:30:20 AM PDT by trumandogz
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To: Terabitten

The Constitution doesn’t make something illegal. It merely defines the powers of the federal government.

By this clause of the Constitution, the federal government doesn’t have the authority to produce specie that is not gold or silver, or to recognize as valid the repayment of debts in something other than gold or silver.

So, where does the federal government derive the power to print Federal Reserve notes?


19 posted on 06/19/2007 7:30:44 AM PDT by oblomov
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To: Terabitten

“I wanna tell ya about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts...” Sorry. Had an Arlo Guthrie “Alice’s Restaurant” moment. And somehow, I’m sure Alice’s didn’t take “Berkshares.”

Get your Berkshares today. Backed with the full faith and credit of the local moonbats. And possibly in violation of the US Constitution!

}:-)4


20 posted on 06/19/2007 7:31:33 AM PDT by Moose4 (Effing the ineffable since 1966.)
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