The Asheville Currency Project has morphed into the Smokey Mountain Hollers Cooperative. The group behind the effort has also announced a plan to create a bartering website to support the currency, known as the “holler.”Amy Hamilton, one of the organizers, says the group recently completed Mountain BizWorks’ basic course for entrepreneurs and plans to release the paper currency in coming months.

It will probably be the spring before the group gets its website up and running.

Read more at http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100928/NEWS/309280027

Norah, 38, has been inspired by the Devon town of Totnes which launched its own currency in 2007.

She believes the new Huddersfield money would encourage shops and customers to buy local produce, reduce their fuel consumption and beat the recession.

The Holmfirth woman said: “Local currency has popped up throughout history and has proved successful in times of need.

“It would need some organisation – there could be collection points for the money and it could be in conjunction with the national currency as well.”

Norah, 38, has been inspired by the Devon town of Totnes which launched its own currency in 2007.
She believes the new Huddersfield money would encourage shops and customers to buy local produce, reduce their fuel consumption and beat the recession.
The Holmfirth woman said: “Local currency has popped up throughout history and has proved successful in times of need.
“It would need some organisation – there could be collection points for the money and it could be in conjunction with the national currency as well.”

See the whole story at http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2010/08/25/holmfirth-woman-norah-hamill-s-idea-for-huddersfield-s-own-currency-86081-27129063/

We want you to experience and learn about different kinds of currencies. To measure everything we value in Euros doesn’t do justice to many aspects of our interactions: who would want to sell his/her friendship? How can you put a price-tag on a wild flower? Let’s not compare apples with oranges.

You will find two different currencies on our platform: Ants and Owls.

Basically you will earn Ants by posting blogs and comments on our website.
The Ants represent your quANTitative contributions: things that are easily seen, counted and shared. Diligence is what counts here. Many hard workers are needed to build a community from little bits and pieces. You will receive 5 Ants for every blog-post and comment you write.

Owls will be given to you by readers who like your input. Every time somebody rates your blog-posts or comments, your Owl-account increases respectively.
The Owls represent your qualitative (or quOWLitative) contributions. Traditionally these animals stand for wisdom. But wisdom in nothing that can be attributed automatically. Even a degree in philosophy cannot guarantee that you have something to offer to others. This is why the quality of your contributions needs to be measured by the community. This will happen, when your blogs and comments contain information that helps others to develop their ideas, when they resonate with others´ sentiments and thoughts, when they inspire or entertain: all qualities a community needs to prosper.

The two different currencies will compliment each other, like different species in any ecosystem do.

The more valuable ideas and information you share, the more wealth you will accumulate here.
Have a look at your profile to find the respective “wallets” for Owls and Ants. And watch them fill up as you become active on the website!

Get more info at http://www.generation-europe.eu/summit2010/complementary-currency/

Get more info at http://www.communityforge.net/

“I exchange one cachama (a fresh water fish) for three bunches of bananas,” the Venezuelan President said. He immediately warned his ministers: “I want to see results: (The establishment of) community and barter markets.”

Apparently the demand had died off until just recently when the National Assembly commenced drafting a law aimed at boosting direct and indirect barter. The law would create community currencies, establish exchange rates, and provide merchants with means to obtain goods and services from the government in barter.

Barter has many difficulties which are briefly described below:

1. Lack of Double Coincidence of Wants: In order for act of barter to take place, it is necessary that the persons with matching requirements are brought together. If a person A wants what person B has, person B must also want what person A has.

This is called the double coincidence of wants, which, as we can see, is very rare to obtain in real life. This difficulty makes barter system very cumbersome, even sometimes impossible, especially in an economy where specialization has taken place;

2. Lack of any Common Unit of Measurement of Value: Once the persons wanting each other’s commodity come together, the next problem is to determine the rate at which the exchange will occur. If A has rice, and B has wheat, then how much of rice will exchange for how much of wheat? Even when we have determined such a rate of exchange between the two given commodities, the problem still remains as to how to determine the rates of exchange between all the various commodities which are available in the barter economy. In case there are 500 different goods and services, we will have to work out 1,24,750 possible ratios of exchange which is an enormously difficult task. Not only this, we will have to adjust these ratios with each other in order to avoid unique profiteering by some traders. All the problems add to the difficulties of the barter system;

3. Lack of Means of Sub-division: There are manly kinds of goods (like a shirt, a house, a car etc.) which, when divided, lose their worth. In other words, they are indivisible. In the case of such goods the system of barter fails. If one shirt is exchanged for 2 measures of rice, then to say that half a shirt will exchange for 1 measure of rice has no meaning;

4. Lack of any Common Unit in terms of which Contracts and Agreements requiring Future Payments would be written: In a system of barter economy, another set of difficulties arises when one of the commodities (to be exchanged) is not parted with immediately, and requires to be given away at some future sate. In such a case, there is no way in which we can write a contract, or have an agreement to effect this transaction; and

5. Lack of any Common Unit in terms of which the Generalized Purchasing Power could be stored: An individual’s income is not always spent, and is sometimes set aside for future use. In a system of barter economy, there is no way of storing the purchasing power of the saved income.The money system does not have any of the above problems, and hence it is said that money is the most preferred asset, and money system is the most preferred system for an economy to go ahead.

Modern barter solves all of these problems in an easy way. In modern barter, neither party must have a coincidence of wants, you can just accept barter dollars and spend them on what you really want. Barter dollars provides a common unit of measurement. Barter dollars substitute indivisible goods with incremential units of value. A well managed barter exchange is also a great place to store earnings over time.

Obviously there are exceptions to these solutions. Some mismanaged exchanges don’t do a great job at solving any of the problems, and increase inflation of prices, but a well managed exchange, and there are many of them out there, solve all of these problems and more.

See the full article at http://www.merinews.com/article/the-barter-system-pros-and-cons/15813654.shtml

For me, it’s waaaay to long and wordy to be very effective. That is only an opinion.

See the full story at http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_14977721