--- In [email protected], I am the eternal <l.shad...@...> wrote: > > http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-04-05-scrip_N.htm > > http://tinyurl.com/d36wah > > USA Today > > Communities print their own currency to keep cash flowing > > By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY > A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are > printing their own money. > > Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help > consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses. > > The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals > form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount > say, 95 cents for $1 value and spend the full value at stores > that accept the currency.
I haven't seen anything so formal here in Spain, but I did eat lunch the other day at a restaurant in Barcelona that allows you to pay whatever you can afford for the meal. This recession has been hard on restaurants here. Many in Sitges have closed. I have been told that the average yearly salary in Spain is a mere 12K Euros per year. That's not enough to eat out a lot. But lunch hours are two hours long, and if you lug along a sandwich you're finished in five minutes and miss all the socializing that goes on over a two-hour lunch at the "workingmen's restaurants" that *in normal times* serve a three course meal plus wine for only 7-10 Euros. I eat lunch at these restaurants a lot because the food is usually great. But lately the crowds have been getting smaller and smaller as more and more workers found themselves strapped for cash. But the Barcelona restaurant that allows its patrons to pay what they can afford? PACKED. And the owners report that people aren't "stiffing" them and paying nothing. They really DO pay what they can afford, and more important, THEY KEEP COMING BACK. The owners have been able to keep their restaurant alive and well when many neighboring restaurants have failed. They even say that they're making a little money on the whole deal. Not to mention a shitload of goodwill. Let's face it, if you were the family sitting at the table next to me the other day, a construction worker with a wife and three kids and you hadn't been able to take them out to a restaurant for several months and these guys allowed you to do that and leave 10 Euros for four meals, would YOU go back? Would this overnight become your favorite restaurant in the whole world and the people who run it the closest thing to saints you'd ever met? Looking around the place I found it difficult to keep tears out of my eyes. But the owners were smiling...
