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Idahoans and other Americans are turning to trading instead of spending - Barter markets growing

Open Intelligence says:

The question is whether to go for local / complementary / mutual credit currencies, such as LETS or Time Dollars, or go for barter markets. Perhaps, it’s ‘horses for courses”, and there’s lots of problems with both approaches. Nevertheless, “needs must”,

(Thanks for the Recommend, Elle. For more on this subject, see Barter under Markets in Categories at bottom of Right Bar)

Amplify’d from www.idahostatesman.com

Bartering - the trading of goods or services without using cash - is making a comeback in a troubled economy. It can be as simple as trading baby-sitting with another family or as complex as an exchange with strangers assisted by one of several Web sites that have sprung up to connect barterers.

Traffic is also up at local organizations like the Midwest Barter Exchange, a Kalamazoo, Mich.-based outfit that acts as a go-between for about 1,000 business clients.

The IRS considers barter dollars as identical to real currency for tax reporting, and barterers must obtain a special form, the 1099-B.
“The human element and the relationship between buyers and sellers becomes more important when we get involved in bartering transactions,”
Professor Andrew Whinston at the University of Texas-Austin, who has written about bartering, said the Internet has made bartering easier,
said nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen next with the markets that rely on credit and currency.Read more at www.idahostatesman.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  4 hours ago

Sterling weakens as eurozone’s problems unsettle the markets - What is Soros doing this time?

Open Intelligence says:

Joseph Stiglitz says the speculators and hedgers should be “burned” by a sudden hike in interest rates. No elected government would be able to do that, but the ECB just might. The consequences would be very difficult for Europeans, but it might save the common currency … whether it is worth saving is another question.

Amplify’d from business.timesonline.co.uk

Sterling tumbled to an eight-and-a-half-month low against the dollar yesterday as investors, worried about the continuing fiscal difficulties of some eurozone countries, fled to the safety of the greenback.

The pound has plummeted by nearly ten cents since mid-January amid mounting fears over how countries, including Greece and Spain, will meet their debt obligations.

In a further sign of the concerns surrounding the UK economy, the spread between ten-year gilts and German government bonds hit a two-and-a-half-year high yesterday.

The euro rose by 0.5 per cent against the pound to 87.98p, its strongest in two weeks, before falling back to 87.60. There were concerns about demand at today’s 25-year gilt auction after the Bank of England decided last week to end quantitative easing.

Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  8 hours ago

Europe On The Brink - Contagion spreading

Open Intelligence says:

Austria is also reported to be engulfed in bank debt, not to mention Sweden and the Baltic States. Social unrest and an increasingly authoritarian States are liable to be the consequence, for the short term at least. Who knows after that?

Amplify’d from money.ninemsn.com.au
Last night the European Commision used new EU treaty powers to impose strict measures upon the Greek government and economy. Greece has vowed to reduce its deficit from 13% of GDP to 3% by 2012
The new socialist government is already meeting opposition from its trade union support base and a general strike has been planned. The EU is under pressure from the ECB and from dominant member Germany to bring a profligate Greece into line.
The measures are intended to prevent money flowing out of Greek government bonds for fear that Greece may not be able to meet its interest payment obligations.
It is the nature of such default risk episodes that contagion is a feature.
the attention has turned to Portugal
Spain is considered to be the next domino, and beyond Spain even the larger Italian economy is drawing attention.
Germans are renowned for being a nation of strict savers unlike their frivolous Club Med peers. Why should Germans have to stump for Mediterranean profligacy?Read more at money.ninemsn.com.au
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  1 day ago

Europe needs to show it has a crisis endgame - Bailing out sinking ships

Open Intelligence says:

Integration and standardisation, the watchword of the European Union project, could turn into disintegration, as local currencies will be found to better serve local needs. Long live the drachma (and the Ithaca Dollar).

Amplify’d from www.ft.com
Investors have concluded that the probability of a contagious default is rising. They are right.
advocates of an IMF-led bail-out conveniently ignore the disastrous signal that this would send to the financial markets about where the eurozone is heading
The problem is the lack of a credible endgame.
when a government fails
it does not go beyond its ultimate sanction – a fine. Yet what is the point of fining an insolvent state? The endgame is still default – and contagion.
And, lest we forget, other European countries might also be vulnerable. Austria could still be drowned by its banking crisis; Belgium has a much higher level of debt than either Spain or Portugal and a financial sector heavily shaken by the global crisis. As worries spread north, serious investors might be tempted to bet serious money on a eurozone break-up. Read more at www.ft.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  1 day ago

Everybody Off the Beach! - Hyperinflation could hit Japan first

Open Intelligence says:

Who’s next?

Amplify’d from dailyreckoning.com
“Japan Deflation Hits a Record Pace,” reported the BBC. Prices in Japan were falling faster than they ever had since they began keeping track in 1970
We don’t know how this will turn out. Could it end in hyperinflation? Maybe.
For every yen the government squeezes from its taxpayers, it returns more than 2 yen in public spending.
The more the government tries to stimulate spending by running deficits, the more people try to protect themselves by saving.
Their fiscal stimulus no longer stimulates. Their monetary inflation no longer inflates.
Fiscal stimulus hits a new record, right along with deflation.
The Japanese were recently among the champion savers of the world. Directly or indirectly, these savings financed the government’s stimulus efforts.
The typical Japanese person looks forward to his retirement with a mountain of savings in his backyard. He believes he still has his cake. The government, however, has eaten it.
Desperate people try to get rid of paper. They want something solidRead more at dailyreckoning.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  3 days ago

Sovereign debt fears rattle investors

Open Intelligence says:

“You can run to the rocks, but you can’t hide.” (Jimmy Cliff)

Amplify’d from www.ft.com
Fears of sovereign debt contagion across the eurozone sent European markets sharply lower on Thursday as negative sentiment spread to Wall Street with US markets also hit by worse than expected jobless data

European and UK stock markets fell more than 2 per cent, with Portuguese and Spanish stock markets leading the declines with falls of 5 per cent or more. Investors also sold sovereign debt in these periphery eurozone countries and sought the safety of the dollar and US Treasuries.

The euro fell below $1.377 against the dollar, hitting lows last seen in May 2009.

The dollar benefited from its safe haven status and was up 0.6 per cent against a basket of trade-weighted currencies, its highest level since July last year.
Worse than expected jobless data in the US added to the woes,
first-time claims for US unemployment benefits showed a rise of 8,000 last week to 480,000, against analysts’ expectations of a fall. Read more at www.ft.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  5 days ago

Endgame (2)

Open Intelligence says:

Greer says that it is time to start implementing your survival strategy now, or join what he calls the “New Okies”. This kind of warning is very unlike the unflappable pragmatist I have come to know. Something has really freaked him out.
Still our snow drops came out today.

Amplify’d from energybulletin.net
Plenty of countries in the past have tried to cover expenses that overshot income by spinning the presses at the local mint. The result is generally hyperinflation
The difficulty, of course, is that pumping the money supply fixes the symptoms of economic failure without treating the causes, and in every case I know of, governments that resort to it end up caught on a treadmill that requires ever larger infusions of paper money just to maintain the status quo. Sooner or later, as the amount of currency in circulation outstrips the goods and services available to buy, inflation spins out of control, the currency loses most or all of its value,
and the economy grinds to a halt until a new currency can be issued on some sounder basis.
America has finally reached the point where its economy is so deep into overshoot that catabolic collapse is beginning
we may have just moved into the endgame of America’s losing battle with the consequences of its own history.Read more at energybulletin.net
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  5 days ago

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (2)

Open Intelligence says:

I wonder what Tom has to say about online communities and the gift-based social exchange which takes place there. It begs the question of the nature of communities. The Arch Druid made a good point on the subject today:
http://openintelligence.amplify.com/2010/01/29/this-presupposition-of-passivity/

Amplify’d from www.realitysandwich.com
The End of Money and the Future of Civilization
What is required is the ending of the money monopoly. This means the decentralization and democratization of the exchange process. Again this can only be achieved through traders establishing their own mutual credit clearing circles and independent private and community currencies.
By creating their own local currencies traders can liberate the exchange process and disperse the money power amongst themselves. It is in fact a lot more than just the exchange process that is liberated when a usury-free exchange system is adopted.
Mutual credit clearing circles fall under the category of information-based exchange systems and are not part of the money-based camp. Where the organizing principle is information and not exchange media,
Both the agreement and the obligation are social, and they apply to both sides.
Everyone has an obligation to the community to keep their mean balance as close to zero as possibleRead more at www.realitysandwich.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  11 days ago

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (1)

Open Intelligence says:

Tom really seems to probing to the heart of how the current money exchange system is threatening human life on earth (not to mention non-human life). He also has a very good idea of what to do about it. I’ll be buying his book.

Thanks to Daniel Durrant for the link

Amplify’d from www.realitysandwich.com
He talks us through the historical record and shows how the current financial system has shaped and governs our world. The argument of the book is that if we are to tackle the gigantic issues of our time, we have to understand how money works and adopt a new way of doing money. We do not have to re-invent it entirely,
Today it is the “money power” that rules the world:
A money monopoly, whether in private hands or government controlled, is inimical to freedom and equity.”
In order to realize a new monetary paradigm, money-as-we-know-it needs to be “depoliticised.” This can only be accomplished by the separation of money and the state
Exchange is a property of life on earth and not something special or unique to humans.
Greco is not talking about a complementary currency here, but an entirely new exchange system that excludes the financial industry as we know it,
a network of locally-based “circles”
would result in an economy consisting of a multitude of discrete, locally-based, mini economiesRead more at www.realitysandwich.com
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  11 days ago

Soaring cost of food: Shops accused of using VAT increase to disguise rises

Amplify’d from www.dailymail.co.uk

The cost of food and petrol has shown a shock rise, despite supermarket promises of January price cuts.

At the same time, the price of unleaded petrol is close to 30 per cent higher than a year ago amid evidence that some supermarkets have abandoned cost-cutting.

The shopping basket of 37 items came in at £53.63, which equates to a rise of 7.5 per cent, making it the biggest annual increase since May last year.

All this comes on the back of official figures showing millions of workers in the private sector have suffered pay freezes and even cuts in the past year.

cost of living

AA figures show that owners of unleaded petrol cars are having to find an extra £27 a month to cover their fuel costs compared with this time last year.

pugh cartoon
See more at www.dailymail.co.uk
 
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Posted by Open Intelligence  14 days ago