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ID-15 Inescapable Conclusions. January 8th, 1986
Recall the analogy of the leaking bucket.
Money comes and money goes and everyone tries to balance
themselves without any real control over income.
If you can keep your act together at all, relying upon such an
unpredictable system of support, how can you fail to do better
when you can also use a money system in which every dollar you
spend returns to you as income ?
This applies whether you and your bucket represent a household or
a business, no matter what.
Anybody who uses money and could use some more can use a
LETSystem.
This result derives entirely from the particular property of
local currencies that the money cannot be drained out of the
community.
Since green dollars do not compete with conventional, they offer
entirely additional advantage and need never detract from
performance in the cash economy.
Just like an extra range of gears.
These benefits are enhanced by the personal issue structure of
LETSystems, but are not essentially dependent upon it.
LETSystems are inherently stable and risk free.
Conventional currencies are entirely insubstantial, and prone to
collapse unless very strongly backed.
Once a conventional currency loses credibility, it cannot be
regenerated.
Consider confederate bills, and the deutschmark of the Weimar
republic.
The backing of each green dollar in circulation is a dollar of
committment by some member of the community itself.
It requires both :
- considerable defection of non-contributing players, and
- the perception by most of the remaining members that they
have actually lost something,
to even begin uncertainty.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-15 Page 1
ID-15 Inescapable Conclusions. January 8th, 1986
The concerned members may devalue their own holdings by quickly
discounting their value without those who are still confident
being in any way affected by the panic.
Once those with little intelligence and those with little faith
have retired to the sidelines, those who remain can continue to
use the system with full value amongst each other.
Nervous players will be able to trade on a small scale without
taking large risks, and expand as their confidence grows.
Just like learning to ride a bicycle.
The analogy is accurate in many respects.
As the momentum of a green economy develops so does confidence.
A bicycle is only as safe as the rider, and there is no absolute
protection for the foolish.
In conventional money, each person who defaults, or crashes a
bicycle, brings us all down, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
LETSystems differ from conventional currencies in that each
participant can maintain a secure and valuable process simply by
minding his/her own business.
There is great value in becoming quickly comfortable with the use
of your own money.
If you are simply willing to keep your word, it will serve you
very well, and others too.
Landsman Community Services Ltd. ID-15 Page 2
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