Money News

Would Germany be a better place if each citizen received a no-strings-attached government check for $1,100 a month? 

Would people still get out of bed each day and go to work or do something else productive even with that unconditional basic income of 1,000 euros, less than half the average German monthly wage, but more than twice what those on welfare receive?

A new digital crypto-currency has been launched that is generated by human movement. 

Bitwalking dollars will be earned by walking, unlike other digital currencies such as Bitcoins that are "mined" by computers. 

A phone application counts and verifies users' steps, with walkers earning approximately 1 BW$ for about 10,000 steps (about five miles). 

In developed nations the average person would earn around 15 BW$ a month, but it is hoped that in poorer countries where people have to walk further for work, school, or simply to collect water, the Bitwalking scheme could help transform lives...

Like the natural world itself, the community credit landscape is diverse and dynamic and will never be fixed in a single pattern. That said, it is possible to recognize three distinct cultures that have emerged among these systems so far.  

They are LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems), Business-to-Business (B2B) trading systems, and TimeBanks.  

Each of these groups organizes somewhat differently and uses different systems, but they’re all premised on the same basic principle of mutual credit exchange.  

A community credit facility results any time a group of people or organizations comes together and agrees to directly issue credit to each other for their own goods and services. (Some groups have a different way of describing this, but the result is the same.)  

This is usually called mutual credit, and it’s the most democratic form of credit creation: we issue credit ourselves backed by our own promises to redeem it in the future.  Organize these promises together, and you’ve got a bottom-up credit facility...

Under the Swiss Federal Constitution, if a petition gathers at least 100,000 signatures within 18 months, a referendum is held on the issue a few years later. 

“In a nutshell, the proposal extends the Swiss Federation’s existing exclusive right to create coins and notes, to also include deposits.With the full power of new money creation exclusively in the hands of the Swiss National Bank, the commercial banks would no longer have the power to create money through lending.

The Swiss National Bank’s primary role becomes the management of the money supply relative to the productive economy, while the decision concerning how new money is introduced debt free into the economy would reside with the government”, reads the official website of the initiative. 

In Switzerland, referendums are usually organised 3 to 5 years after a popular initiative succeeds. The proposals first have to be debated by the Federal government and Parliament. In case the Parliament decides to adopt a proposal into law immediately, the organisers of the initiative have the right to renounce the referendum, hence speeding up the implementation of the proposal. However, this is very rare case, as most initiatives are ultimately submitted to a nationwide referendum.

Officials in Barcelona, Spain announced plans to try a local currency in order to stimulate business in the city and surrounding areas. 

According to news reports and statements from local officials, the alternative currency will be entirely digital — or a cashless currency. The name will be chosen in a “participatory process,” officials said. Apparently users will trade in their euros, the embattled single European currency, at a rate of one to one. The units of local currency will then be credited to a card, mobile phone, or some other device, so they can be used among participating local merchants — probably with a small discount over the standard price in euros.

Taxes, public transportation fees, and more might also be payable in the new currency, according to officials. Government workers, welfare recipients, and others might also be paid in the currency, if they agree.  

Users will also be able to trade the local currency back into euros if they so choose. And every element of the project will be voluntary, officials said, noting that no business would be forced to accept the local currency against its will.

When the financial crisis hit Sardinia, a group of local friends decided that the best way to help the island was to set up a currency from scratch

To understand how Sardex works, you have to abandon much of what you may think you know about money.

There is no bank that prints Sardex notes; no algorithm that generates Sardex digital coins. Instead, it functions as a system of mutual credit: each firm begins at zero, earning the digital currency — equivalent to but non-exchangeable with the euro — as it offers goods or services to others in the network.

Companies may go into debt but only up to a certain limit, determined by what they can offer the other participating firms. Crucially, there is no interest on Sardex; it functions purely as a means of exchange.

With the Citizen’s Income, also known as the Basic or Universal Income, everybody in the country gets given enough money to meet their basic needs every week, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, employed or unemployed. It replaces the complicated bureaucracy of much of the welfare state and would be funded through progressive taxation, or possibly a Land Value Tax. 

Hearing the idea for the first time can cause many to splutter, especially those for whom the idea of something for nothing sends them into a blind rage.

Thanks to the tabloid obsession with ‘scroungers’ and the idea that taxing the rich will trigger Armageddon, there are many who will splutter quite profoundly at the Citizen’s Income.

Its arrival in the mainstream would have a similar impact to the first appearance of the Sex Pistols on British television in the 1970s...

Giving cash to poor people is just good policy.

I write a lot about the benefits of fighting poverty by giving poor people cash. It's supported by good evidence, it's relatively easy, it respects the decisions of poor people as to how to spend it, and it avoids the central planning challenges of some other anti-poverty policies. 

The most common response is something along the lines of "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

I've always hated that saying, not least because a healthy diet requires eating more than just fish, but it's actually sort of helpful in this context. The main reason I prefer just giving someone a fish is that we really don't know, especially in international development, how to teach people to fish.

We haven't figured out how to make poor countries grow...

The full transcript of the former Greek Finance Minister's first interview since resigning. 

"... there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. … You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on – to make sure it’s logically coherent – and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply. And that’s startling, for somebody who’s used to academic debate. … The other side always engages. Well there was no engagement at all. It was not even annoyance, it was as if one had not spoken."

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece

It’s simple, the euro is finished. It won’t survive the unmitigated scandal that Greece has become. Greece is not the victim of its own profligacy, it’s the victim of a structure that makes it possible to unload the losses of the big countries’ failing financial systems onto the shoulders of the smaller. There’s no way Greece could win.

The damned lies and liars and statistics that come with all this are merely the cherry on the euro cake. It’s done. Stick a fork in it.

The smaller, poorer, countries in the eurozone need to get out while they can, and as fast as they can, or they will find themselves saddled with ever more losses of the richer nations as the euro falls apart. The structure guarantees it.

The success of the Bristol pound – with the equivalent of £700,000 in circulation in the area – has put the spotlight on attempts to keep money in local economies 

“The practical vision was to get something which would connect local communities with their businesses in a way which kept money building up in their local communities,”

Adrian Byrne, coordinator of Manchester Positive Money, says: "The time has come to ask if the current mechanism for money creation is best serving society’s interests - or could we do better?"

The problem of the financial system relates to the ability of banks to create money in the form of deposits through issuing loans - and this problem has not been addressed.  

Please show your support for this money commission and let the politicians know that this issue is of vital importance to the public by signing the petition. 

Will you join Adrian and sign the petition?

The Finnish Social Insurance Institution (KELA) has given some preliminary elements concerning Finland’s plan to experiment and then generalize the implementation of a basic income in the country.

In its final version, the basic income would replace other benefits people currently receive, and would therefore be rather high, as indicated by Kela’s Research Department Director Olli Kangas. It is considered that all Finnish citizens would be paid an untaxed benefit sum free of charge by the government, 800 euros a month in the final version, 550 euros monthly in the model’s pilot phase.

Russian Natioanl Payment Card System (NPCS) and Japan’s largest payment system Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) have agreed to cooperate and issue co-badged cards, says a statement from the Russian company. The new card will be called Mir-JCB. 

“The partnership with the Japanese payment system will provide Mir-JCB bank cards access to the infrastructure of JCB worldwide, including Asia, where JCB has traditionally been strong and had wide network of card acceptance. Co-badging the Mir-JCB card will work in the infrastructure of the Mir payment system as a Mir bank card; in the JCB infrastructure, outside of Russia, as a JCB card”, said the statement published Tuesday.

JCB is one of the largest payment systems in the world. JCB cards are issued in 19 countries with 190 countries accepting the cards. JCB has more than 89 million clients, 20 million of whom live outside of Japan.