[GJM] There is a Global 'LETS' Scheme in place NOW!

[ecotort at gn.apc.org]

As I understand it, a LETS scheme simply prints a PAPER OR VIRTUAL CURRENCY
which is then used to exchange goods and services among the members of the
scheme...

On Planet Earth, we hae a banking system which, it seems, has been roughly
doubling its 'money' (through fractional reserve banking...) for the last 500
years. 
In other words it would seem that there is something like (2x2x2x2x2 500 times,
or 2 to the power 500) more PAPER OR VIRTUAL CURRENCY in the world than there
is gold. 

2 to the power 500 is 2x2x2x2x2x2 500 times, and it is an astronomical number!
2 to the power 11 is 1024
2 to the power 22 is 1024 x 1024 which is just over 1 000 000
2 to the power 44 is well over 1 000 000 000 000 (a British Billion!)
After 44 years of banking (tarting 500 years ago) the banks magnified their
wealth in gold by a billion.

A British billion is 39000 years worth of seconds..... 

In other words, if the banks started with a single bar of gold 500 years ago,
after 44 years of banking they had (on paper) 39000 years worth of
seconds.....in bars of gold, and the next year it doubled again, and again and
again each year until the present day.

This is why the biggest building on the high street is the bank!

My point is that this money is virtually all virtual money, it is no longer even
printed as paper, but at least 99% of it is only represented as millivolts of
electricity in a computer somewhere.

It is 'virtual money' and therefore has no real intrinsic value whatsoever...

There is therefore no real 'economic' reason why we cannot be totally
ecologically sustainable, AND feed everyone on the Planet Earth.




----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.