Good grief, Mike, where do you get this stuff? Thank God this guy is - to
be kind - on the lunatic fringe and not a mainstream politician (though it
is sometimes hard to tell the difference). A few quotes will illustrate:
"I mean we all know the problems of having one single dollar in the States
has, it means some places get poorer and some places get very rich. And I
think we can expect to find very similar things happening in Europe."
So, income differentials are due to the fact of a single currency, are they?
"Because, when they arrived with the Mayflower with a couple of chickens and
some sheep, somehow, they had to cozier up enough money to build this whole
continent. And they did
that as we know partly by bartering the Indians $26 dollars for Manhattan
Island and partly by making money very available."
So that is how it happened. The tremendous resource base of the new world
wasn't needed after all.
"So, there is the other side of the American experience of money which we
haven 't really had in Europe which is every generation, a massive series of
bank crashes. And that's the other side of the coin really."
Geez! Does this mean at least one crash a year?
"If you believe they're valuable, they're valuable. And that's another
insight that the local currency system has given us."
I've often wondered about the basis for our economic values. Now I know.
"I think it has a problem which comes with it because, if we provide enough
money for us all to leave all of our every want, it means that we then have
to decide what really is the difference between people's need and people's
greed, which is a great slogan but almost impossible to find out in practice
what the difference between the two is. And that's a problem which faces
down the line."
Well, at last some recognition of reality.
The issue of LETS has been raised on this list before. People have put
forward sound reasons for having a local currency system as an adjunct to
the national system. Local people can be mobilized around specific needs.
Employment of a specific kind can be created. But to present the arguments
in the way this fellow has makes a silly sham of the whole thing.
Ed Weick
