Thailand on Monday said it planned to barter rice for oil with Iran in the clearest example to date of how the triple financial, fuel and food crisis is reshaping global trade as countries struggle with high commodity prices and a lack of credit.
The form of money administration is as important as the form of money itself. Good Bank Finance, from the same area as Berkshire Bucks, is attempting to reinvent banks as a not-for-profit private bank, controlled by one-vote per shareholder, rather than one-vote per share, where all the profits (post some small dividend) are given to non-profits.
Jan Chipchase has been investigating mobile mediums of exchange. I was introduced to him via his excellent TED talk, and he talks about using cell phones and money also on his blog.with mobile money's nomenclature micro-payments, the concept hasnt taken off just yet. perhaps it's because people are aware that the real agenda isnt small-payments but more-payments? I suspect it's not worth the hassle to allow yourself to be nickeled and dimed with a medium that can burn a hole in your pocket. better to stick with nickels and dimes.
That's because while no regulation at all might minimise compliance costs for the provider, it does not minimise costs for society as a whole: consumers carry on using more inefficient forms of payment (cash, in the countries being discussed) because they have regulatory certainty.
I met with the founder last week, and seems to be still figuring out the mission statement of this project. Complementary exchange protocols are interesting, but Gillaume may direct his organization to focus more on the real world issue of how to divert spare capacity to non-profit organizations, by creating Non-Profit Script, or a special purpose LETsystem for non-profits.
Because of the special needs of non-profit donators (in-kind donations, tax record keeping, etc), and because the non-profit community may be more open to the late adopting money crowd, I think there is space for this good cause.
A different mission completely, and just as interesting. It's less technology oriented (creating solutions looking for a problem), and focused on a subset of the world's troubles to solve. I'll report on their activities when they finally settle on their direction.
This is part of the complimentary currency movement that's at the opposite end of the centralized/decentralized money making spectrum (SDRs are on the opposite side).
Community Exchange SystemWith the impending implosion of the usury-based, global money system, now is the time to seek a new way of 'doing' money, one not based on debt and controlled by a global monetary elite who seem happy about destroying our planet in the pursuit of profit.
Conventional money is created as debt by private financial institutions for their own profit-making purposes, not as a public service. This is the root cause of the economic, social and environmental problems that beset us. The amount of debt determines the quantity of money, which has nothing to do with the amount of money we need to live decent lives.
CES 'money' is created by its users so it can never be in short supply. So long as you can offer something of value you can have from the community goods and services of like value.
Join the growing community who have discovered a new way of 'doing' money, a healthy money that will create a healthy society.
Creating money out of tangible assets is nothing new. The idea to use energy as the basis of capital is novel, and this is the first project i've seen that tries to show how this might work.Kilowatt Cards are gift cards that pay for 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity in any home utility account (including all taxes and fees) when REDEEMED here. The cards can be redeemed by anyone to pay for household electricity worldwide. Since they can be used to pay for anyone's electricity, they can also be used to barter for other things - resulting in an international store-of-value (assets) and a stateless medium-of-exchange (electricity).
To prove that a Kilowatt Card is real and active, enter the last six digits of its serial number in this form. If the number is active, two new digits will be returned that should be written on the card by hand, forming the end of a new six-digit number, while the first two digits are cancelled. The method creates a new serial number every time, while the old number is cancelled. So nobody holding a Kilowatt Card can use copies of it, since all copies will have a cancelled serial number after any one of them has been AUTHENTICATED
This way plain paper cards can be traded widely, yet proven real by anyone with access to the internet, before they accept it.
In a country accustomed to surprises from its government, Nicaraguans received another curiosity on May 15 when they awoke to find that the Central Bank, moving in the night as stealthily as the Tooth Fairy, had snuck a new legal tender into their economy while the markets were sound asleep.
The new bills, printed on a peculiar plastic-like material in an unfamiliar size and adorned with never-before-seen designs, are meant to replace the old, ratty paper bills that cause germaphobes to collapse in conniptions every time they are handed change. The problem is the new bills were slipped into the economy without any public awareness campaign and minimal forewarning. A week after the plastic money was let loose on the economy, the Central Bank still hadn't updated its website to indicate that the new bills even existed.As a result, most people didn't know what to think when they were suddenly handed a new plastic 10 or 20 cordoba bill, the lowest denominations of Nicaraguan tender and therefore the most commonly used. "This looks like European money," says one taxi driver, in a voice hinting pride, as he twisted and creased the bill in cruel defiance of its seemingly indestructible space-age properties. Others have described it as "play money" or complain that its gloss makes it "slip through my hands."
Most of the criticism, however, seems to indicate an underlying lack of confidence and trust in the government. There are many who remember the first Sandinista government's inventive monetary policies and the resulting mega-inflation of the 1980s. As a result, some people are now treating the new plastic dinero as if it were a hot potato. "Many people don't want these bills because they think they are valueless and they're going to get stuck with them, so they're spending them as fast as they can," says clothing vendor Fabiola Espinoza. It has unintentionally created a bizarre stimulus effect on Nicaragua's beleaguered economy. "As soon as I get one of the plastic bills, I try to pass it on right away to someone else," says shopkeeper Gloria Romero.
The most immediate trouble with this new medium of exchange is that people are not recognizable. as per wikipedia for Medium of Exchange:
To be widely marketable, a medium of exchange should possess the following characteristics:
- transportability
- divisibility
- high market value in relation to volume and weight
- recognizability
- resistance to counterfeiting
Because people dont recognize it, and are not sure that it is a good store of value, they pass it along. Stimulating the economy in the short term, the decrease in trust can cause both political and economic trouble down the road.
I dont have access to the now 2 year old economist article, but among the "cash is dead" hubris, the study proclaiming how people spend 20% more when they use a credit card, rather than cash, even when there is no liquidity constraint. The Economist wants consumers to spend more and get more into debt, so this is viewed as positive by the editors of the Economist.
back to the article:
Ah, the medium is the message. Of course recognizability is important. people forget how trust is built up in these mediums. I find it telling how the treasurer's guaranteeing signature is important.The public's suspicion of the new bills has been validated by serious legal concerns by economists and opposition lawmakers. Several legislators have pointed out that the new bills were printed without the signature of the Minister of Finance, as required by the country's Monetary Law, effectively making them fake bills. "These bills are illegal and worthless and should only be used to play Monopoly," says opposition legislative leader Wilfredo Navarro. "President Daniel Ortega is a counterfeiter. That's the level things have gotten to in Nicaragua these days." The lawmaker, a member of the legislature's Economic Commission, says "any serious government" would immediately recognize the error and recall the money. But so far the Sandinistas aren't budging.
Instead, government officials have responded in what has become the Sandinistas' standard reaction to criticism: triumphalism mixed with personal attacks. Sandinista lawmakers have accused Navarro of "economic terrorism" for questioning the bills' legality, and Central Bank president Antenor Rosales dismissed the criticism as the complaints of rich people "who are more accustomed to using debit cards and checks and don't care about the people." Said Rosales, "The Central Bank is profoundly satisfied with the excellent reception that the bills have had with the Nicaraguan population. Everywhere in Nicaragua the bills are being used."
Rosales defended the legality of the bills, insisting that legislation passed in 1995 gives the Central Bank "exclusive authority" to mint and print money. The number of signatures that appear or don't appear on the money is not important, he said. Critics, however, argue that the Central Bank's exclusive authority doesn't give it creative license to invent new styles of currency that stray from the technical specifications laid out in the Monetary Law. "The government couldn't just start circulating cacao beans and say it's currency like the indigenous did," says economist Nestor Avendano. "They have to respect the law."
The comments on this subject are a lively discussion on how to define money supplies. Considering that derivative securities are often treated as equivalent to money (for example, the notional value of derivatives are recorded on balance sheets), I tend to think this author is on the right track for understanding the mega topics of inflation and deflation.
The Liquidity Pyramid
Much speculation lately focuses not so much on what the stock market will do (the answer to that should be self-evident, especially once shorting stocks again becomes a practical reality), but what the impact of recent economic policies will be not just on inflation (regional or global), but also on that most sacrosanct piece of paper, the U.S. dollar.
In order to approach this question from a different angle than the conventional theoretical wisdom of Quantitative Easing being the end all be all explanation for the mid- and long-term fate of the U.S. currency, an approach that has much more practical credence is that presented by David Roche of Independent Strategy, which demonstrates overall liquidity, defined as claims on goods, services and assets, as an inverted pyramid.
At the bottom of this pyramid is the power money of reserve cash - liquidity created on the balance sheet of central banks. As noted, it accounts for a mere 1% of global liquidity, and thus the impact that the Fed and other world central banks will have with existing policies that address merely this aspect of liquidity will be, at best, massively muted. Above this is the liquidity bank loans liquidity, created through the conventional credit multiplier mechanism of commercial banks. Above that still is the liquidity created by securitization of debt. This experiment, gone horribly wrong, allowed claims on illiquid assets to grow further relative to the reserve money in the system. This is precisely the layer that the Fed and Treasury are trying to revive with the various TALF iterations, so far unsuccessfully. And at the very top of the pyramid is the layer of interest rate and credit derivatives: a means whereby institutions were able to maximize claims on physical and financial assets, by insuring against losses, without increasing precautionary reserves either of capital or reserve money.
In order to fully understand currency and price movements, one has to realize that the securitization of debt, and creation of derivatives amounted to a huge virtual printing press, primarily fueled by a massive increase in risk appetite which allowed for a huge expansion in the value of claims on financial assets and goods and services. It is worth pointing out, that the Fed has little to no control over this "printing press" at this point, which at last count was responsible for over 90% of the liquidity in the system.
Show me the money
In a fiat currency system, as previously pointed out, money is nothing more than a claim on assets, goods and services, and, most dangerously, money created at the top of the pyramid, in electronic form or otherwise, is just as real as the coins and physical dollars held at the basement of the Federal Reserve. The propagation of money higher in the liquidity pyramid explains why all traditional measures of money supply are not only inadequate but likely flawed: orthodox measure of money supply only include the first two pyramid tiers and completely ignore the major ones at the top. This is a major problem as analysts and economists who rely on these traditional "money metrics" only get a glimpse of 7% of the global liquidity in circulation. As for the the balance? The effect of creating an overabundant supply of money (that was not figuring into any monetarist policies) was that the price of money fell relative to assets, commodities and goods, services and labor. Therefore not only did generalized price inflation accelerate, but so did the increase in asset prices as well as the 6 year commodity bull run over the past 6 years.
The Open Money Foundation is gathering interest.
I’ve discussed the idea to a variety of people in the last few weeks, ranging from virtual world developers to Web developers, community currency activists and gold currency advocates, and there is a strong agreement towards a very focused and simple goal of currency services interoperability.
This simple goal has to be viewed as a first and necessary step to realize the larger vision of Open Money or free currencies. In particular for community currencies, another cornerstone are economically-driven adoption models such as Community Way.
Open Money Foundation mission
In a nutshell, Open Money Foundation should define the OpenID of currency services:
Open Money = a set of open interface specifications designed for adoption that governs the interoperability between independent currency services and client applications.
Note that this is not restricted to community currencies currencies. We think World of Warcraft virtual gold coins, phone airtime minutes, digital gold currencies, Linden dollars or any virtual currency can benefit from this interoperability. Conversely, we think that community currencies will benefit from the participation of virtual/game/alternate currency providers.
A currency service that complies with Open Money Foundation specifications will enable the following benefits for end-users:
- automatic discovery of currency services on the Internet.
- one click currency registration request: users will be able to very easily request to join a currency service from their favorite currency application (”wallet”?).
- single view of all currency balances: users will be able to view all their balances at various currency service from their favorite Open Money-compliant currency app.
- transacting on any currency service from any Open Money compliant app.
- starting a new currency on an existing currency service will be as easy as starting a group on Facebook (this is specific to credit currencies such as community currencies)
- and more.
The goal of these specifications isn’t to re-invent the wheel. There are many open specifications to leverage to address some of the problems above (OpenID, OpenSocial, OAuth, OFX) and some currency systems already leverage these.
An important aspect of the suggested focus is to not focus on implementation but only on interfaces. In the case of a currency service, implementation is for instance how creditworthiness and credit limits are determined, or whether interest or fees are charged. An interface is simply: how do I request to the currency service a demand for credit. There are many advantages to focus on interfaces not implementation:
- We don’t get into the philosophical discussions of what is a currency, what are its characteristics, etc.
- We can each focus on our area of expertise: some on client applications that make it easy for users to use the currency, some on server scalability, some on currency design, etc.
- We leave an opportunity for implementers to differentiate themselves and address various community requirements, either as a generic platform with a currency definition language or as an ad-hoc currency service for a specific community, either as a not-for-profit, or for profit.
Besides offering a forum for the development of these specifications, the Open Money Foundation will channel funding for the development of an open source reference implementation that everyone can at least use to test their own implementation, or build upon.
I’m looking forward for feedback on this topic. If you like these goals and are interested to participate in a way or another, please comment.
Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger. I spent a bit of time trying to convince Craig Newmark to develop an alternative currency with me for use, initially, on Craigslist called CraigBucks. Although he (perhaps wisely) has decided that it might be better for such a thing to arise independently of Craigslist proper, that hasn't stopped me from looking at how to take everything that works so well about transparent, local currencies (specifically, those of the LETS variety), and apply them to non-local communities with shared values.The main trick is to have a currency that - unlike dollars, which are lent into existence by a bank - is instead worked into existence through an exchange. One person in the system is willing to be debited for what he gets from another. And everything stays completely transparent. Eventually (like in a file-sharing system) a person taking but not giving ends up in too much virtual debt to acquire more goods and services without finding something to do or trade with someone.
Coincidentally, then, I came across TipJoy, a pretty robust little system through which people can pay each other "tips" via the net, or even Twitter. Tie the TipJoy system to an alternative currency database instead of dollars, and the system should be able to work. The more transparent it is, the more people will be able to determine just what the unit of currency is worth to everyone else.
And as "Winston" suggested we call them over in a discussion at Rushkoff.com, why not call them NewMarks?
ACORNs - City of Oakland ID MoneyAlternative Currency for Oakland Residents and Neighbors
…An Oakland Merchant Credit System/ID as Local Currency…
BY WILSON RILES, JR
A number of groups in Oakland are organizing around a residential ID card. The City and County of San Francisco has voted to implement one in August. The principle motivation of the San Francisco effort and those currently involved in the Oakland effort is to make more real the “sanctuary city” concept for the “undocumented.” It is believed that a City ID would provide the “undocumented” an official document that would be useful in many circumstances that you might imagine: opening bank accounts, verification for credit, resident identification for neighborhood security situations (the police departments generally support such efforts), etc.
In order for an ID card to be successfully implemented for such purposes, however, the card would also have to be of some value and use for those who are “documented” residents also. Otherwise, such an ID card would only be used by the undocumented and it would simply identify a person as an “illegal” and increase rather than decrease vulnerability. This is the experience with the Consular Cards distributed by the Mexican government. Consequently, in San Francisco they are considering having the ID card there also function as a discount card for some City services such as libraries, zoos, and public transportation. Note that San Francisco, being a City and a County, has direct control over more of these kinds of public services than Oakland does. In San Francisco, some are also thinking of incorporating a prepaid credit card into their ID.
I think that Oakland can do better than that by fashioning a card that would be of great benefit to all the residents of Oakland. Only a narrow slice of the resident population uses the zoo, the libraries, and other local services in the control of City government. It is not the cost that keeps most Oakland residents away from these services; it is interest and the availability of alternatives activities that they can also afford. In addition, only a slice of the low-income resident population bothers with discount cards or prepaid credit cards. Most folks really do not need another credit card option. My suggestion is that we address the roots of one of Oakland’s most intractable problems: totally permeable economic membranes.
My suggestion is that we combine the ID concept with the concept of a local currency. You could title this either a “merchant credit system” or a local, virtual, Alternative Currency for Oakland Residents and Neighbors (ACORN). In other words, we would call that local currency the “ACORN.” This captures a local prosperity/growth concept for the currency. The United States has a rich history of local currencies. [If you are not aware of this, check out - for example - the following web site: http://www.schumachersociety.org/local_currencies/currency_groups.html. There are local currencies in Ithaca (N.Y.), Berkshire (Mass.), Humboldt (CA.), Lawrence (Kansas), Floyd (Virginia), Calgary (Canada), and many more places in this country and around the world. There are more references at the end of this piece.]
The “big boys” use currency trading not only to hedge against inflation and trade fluctuations but also to amass assets; a local currency would make some of those options available to the City of Oakland and the “little guy.” An additional important benefit is to keep more resources within the micro-economy of the City. Currently Oakland has the lowest “multiplier rate” of any city in the Bay Area; that means that the money that flows into Oakland “turns over” very few times before it flows out into other communities. Local currency significantly increases the “multiplier rate.”
Past attempts to address this problem included attempting to have more City employees live in Oakland, thus expecting them to spend the public dollars from their paychecks in Oakland. [The State constitution does not allow Oakland – unlike some cities in eastern states – to require employees to live in the boundaries of the City.] Oakland has discussed using incentives to achieve this local residency of City employees. The City also instituted various weak “hire Oakland” programs. We have made major efforts to attract major retail outlets hoping to capture more of the retail dollar that leaks outside of our community; for many reasons this has not worked well enough either. [Part of this problem is the lack of resources and attention that is paid to small local businesses: the business sector that has proven the most capable of benefiting and benefiting from local prosperity.] Local merchants’ groups struggle with the City to promote Oakland businesses’ buy-local advertising programs. Some local merchants are currently considering a pre-paid VISA card to promote the Oakland “brand;” the ACORN ID-currency card has many advantages over this pre-paid credit card idea.
Oakland’s attempts at attracting meeting/convention business and tourism has also had limited benefits because tourists simply take BART over to San Francisco to spend their money. If Oakland does not correct for this problem, no amount of convention business, housing development, or office development will improve our local economic situation very much over all. I think that the development of a local currency will be of immediate help. In the tourist business for example, the City, hotels, or visitor sites, as a promotion, could give tourists ACORNs to stimulate their expenditures in Oakland.
In addition, one of the largely unspoken criticisms of the “undocumented” is the millions of dollars that they send to their home country (remittances) that are taken out of the economies of local communities. [This criticism does not take into account the money immigrants spend in the community that might not happen if they were not present to do the work at the compensation levels that are offered.] If the work of employees in Oakland were compensated – at least in part – in ACORNs (accepted for goods and services by Oakland restaurants, retail stores, etc.), this would be a huge boost to Oakland’s economy – producing more local jobs and allowing higher salaries in the local services economy. More of the income earned in Oakland would stay in Oakland. This would tremendously increase the “multiplier effect.”
In San Francisco, the I.D. ordinance attempts to respond to the need that more individuals than the “undocumented” should have these ID cards to make them effective by allowing them to be used as discount cards at libraries, the zoo, the golf course, and for transportation on Muni. Oakland would tap into a larger number of activities by making the ID card also function as local currency. Dr. Raul Hinojosa of UCLA estimates a huge multibillion dollar development potential by working more justly with immigrant residents. Oakland could tremendously boost the local micro economy by paying City employees partially in ACORNs (giving them an ACORN credit/ID card). If just 10% of City employees’ pay were paid in equivalent ACORNs, the current budget deficit of approximately $30 million dollars would be covered and approximately $30 million dollars would be injected into Oakland’s local economy, guaranteed. This would lessen the pressure to lay-off needed City employees.
If the City accepts ACORNs for the payment of parking fees, fines, business licenses, development fees, etc., this will facilitate the circulation of the ACORN in Oakland. The City could encourage the hiring of Oakland residents and many other things by encouraging businesses and others to accept ACORNs and by giving them a cut in costs if they pay by ACORNs. The City would lose little since the greatest economic problem in Oakland is the loss of the economic “multiplier effect” that will be corrected using the ACORN cards.
With the participation of a local bank or financial institution, a magnetic-strip card that could be used in the current card reader technology could be easily implemented. This bank or financial institution would also be able to provide currency exchange services with US dollars as well as with the currency of other cities and other countries. This includes exchanges with the Native American reservations associated with the significant population of people from indigenous tribes that live in Oakland; Oakland has one of the highest concentrations of indigenous people west of the Mississippi. Most of the accounts (checking and savings) of the previously undocumented would probably be placed at this institution in addition to the processing of remittances. City and School District employees will want to open up other accounts in the financial institution that also has their ACORN account. The People’s Community Partnership Federal Credit Union has shown interest and is researching regulatory restrictions. This program is in agreement with their corporate mission.
In addition, local currency would encourage intra-Oakland business-to-business commerce. This would benefit the small and people-of-color businesses in Oakland more than the chains, thus stimulating more local ownership success. Businesses, which “got on board” with this early, would have “a leg up” on lagging businesses in competing for these resources.
The Hass School of Business at UC Berkeley, and business schools and economic departments from Stanford, Mills College and other nearby education institutions could constitute an Oakland ACORN “Reserve Board” to monitor and control the ACORN currency for the benefit of Oakland residents. The “Reserve Board” would also be responsible for the financial education of resident adults and youth. The study of the workings of the local currency could be beneficial to our youth to learn and understand economics at a deeper level than most. The participation of the School District in this educational effort as well as in compensating Oakland teachers – at least partially – in ACORNs would give a huge boost to the success and prosperity of the community. Oakland could truly become a “model city” in every way, including through its economic system and its educational system. Members of the Oakland Unified School District Board are currently considering this proposal.
There may even be uses for the local currency to benefit Oakland’s international trade position, as the fifth largest port in the U.S. Traders may – at times – want the option to denominate their trade to the U.S. in a currency other than the U.S. dollar. In addition, because of the hugely diverse international resident population in Oakland, establishing currency exchange rates with other countries would facilitate more small businesses and local residents getting involved in the international trade business. Making true what I think Oakland’s permanent slogan ought to be, Oakland, Home to the World.
Inviting Trust, Connection, and Playfullness, this Program is sure to create exciting innovative ways of "Paying it Forward". Each Flyer will then be Given a Coin, and asked to do something Magical and Creative for another Human Being... Something that reminds them that this Reality is indeed Magical as well... Give Love, and Pass it On..
this video is the cartoon about how gold commodity coins became bank debt money. .
Libertarians appreciate precious metal based financial systems because it limits the power of the issuing authority. Namely, the issuing authority is physically limited from making more of it. Printing more of it, or nullifying its use as legal tender, can’t destroy its value. The financial power of a lifetime’s worth of savings can be held within the palm of one’s hand. Bury it for 1000 years, and it will still have value.Human Freedom Rests on Gold Redeemable Money
by Hon. Howard Buffett
U.S. Congressman from Nebraska
Reprinted from The Commercial and Financial Chronicle 5/6/48
"Congressman Buffett stresses relation between money and freedom and
contends without a redeemable currency, individual's freedom to sustain himself
or move his property is dependent on goodwill of politicians. Says paper money
systems generally collapse and result in economic chaos. Points out gold
standard would restrict government spending and give people greater power over
public purse. Holds present is propitious time to restore gold standard."
"Is there a connection between Human Freedom and A Gold Redeemable Money?
At first glance it would seem that money belongs to the world of economics and
human freedom to the political sphere."But when you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and
Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there
may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize
known as human liberty. You see, gold is mobility, gold is a passport to move
across borders.
"Also, when you find that Lenin declared and demonstrated that a sure way
to overturn the existing social order and bring about communism was by printing
press paper money, then again you are impressed with the possibility of a
relationship between a gold-backed money and human freedom.
"In that case then certainly you and I as Americans should know the
connection. We must find it even if money is a difficult and tricky subject. I
suppose that if most people were asked for their views on money the almost
universal answer would be that they didn't have enough of it.
"In a free country the monetary unit rests upon a fixed foundation of gold
or gold and silver independent of the ruling politicians. Our dollar was that
kind of money before 1933. Under that system paper currency is redeemable for a
certain weight of gold, at the free option and choice of the holder of paper
money."
The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency
In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and
begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto
world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.
Conspiracy theorists will love it.
It has been a good summit for the IMF.
Its fighting fund for crises is to be tripled overnight to $750bn. This is real
money.
I've mixed feelings about this type of currency. I love the idea of a world without political economic borders. perhaps it's because i was raised in the bosom of empire, here in the USA.
The question comes down to this: can we trust privileged private power to act responsibly, and not enslave the masses? well, at least there would be no war, even in the worst case scenario.
I've heard other spins on this currency calling a "super-national currency", it sounds like it's uber-nationalistic. such is the funny psychic nature of currency. call it one name vs another name, and people's behavior and interactions with it changes.
if it was called, Private Uber Banker Money, it probably wouldnt work. perhaps if you called it PUBmoney, people would think it's good for a beer? hmmm, the proletariat masses love beer....
The Twollars idea was conceived by Internet entrepreneurs Eiso Kant and Mac
Taylor. They noticed that there was an enormous amount of 'social energy' on
Twitter that goes unmeasured. They realised that if this energy could be
converted into a symbolic standard, it could then be passed around like a
currency.
Heaven help me for referencing MarketWatch as my first news source, but it's the first piece of news i spy with the starting of my new blog.Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for more surveillance of countries that issue major reserve currencies, according to published reports Saturday
Wen did not specify the United States in his remarks at the Boao Forum for Asia in China's Hainan Province. But Chinese officials have recently expressed their concern
about their country's investments in dollar-denominated assets. "We should
advance reform of the international financial system, increase the representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries, strengthen surveillance of the macro-economic policies of major reserve currency issuing economies, and develop a more diversified international monetary system," Wen said, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Wen told the conference that China's economy was faring "better than expected." China said last week that its economy grew at an annual rate of 6.1% in the first quarter, a slowdown from 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008. Wen said China would seek to expand currency swap agreements that are seen as a step toward eventually making the yuan more of a global reserve asset. "We should give full play to bilateral currency swap agreements and will study expanding currency swaps in scale and to more countries," Wen was quoted as saying. China's central bank has signed six such swap deals since late 2008, totaling 650 billion yuan ($95 billion). China will set up a $10 billion cooperation fund to support infrastructure projects in countries in the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, Wen said. The plan was announced earlier this month by Chinese Foreign
Minister Yang Jiechi.
