UK green money working group (formed 20 October 2011)
Relayed by Shann Turnbull
The objective of the Green Money Working Group (GMWG) is to develop a form of green money that allows markets to allocate resources according to prices established by local renewable endowments of nature so as to allow society to become sustainable.
Green money would be cost carrying to give it a limited life like all living things. Ecological money eliminates the ability of money to be a store of value. This removes the ability of money to create: inequality from money making
money, the creation of financial asset bubbles, and “financialization” of the economy.
Green money could become a global unit of account whose value is determined by local renewable services of nature. Its development involves:
-
- Digitization to allow money to be transacted through cell phones;
- Introduction of a “rusting”, “depreciating” cost carrying feature;
- Anchoring monetary values in a renewable local service of nature such as renewable energy (KiloWattHours).
Establishing the first two stages is now a matter of urgency to provide local supplementary currencies in the event the financial system freezes up again as did in 2008. Financial stress and/or a major recession could provide a compelling reason for governments to facilitate, if not introduce themselves, a supplementary self-liquidating currency. Yale Professor Irving Fisher (1933) prepared draft legislation in the Appendix of his book on Stamp Scrip written in the Great Depression. Keynes (1936) supported Stamp Scrip in Chapter 23, part VI of his General Theory.
To stimulate the economy the UK government is considering “Quantitative Easing” (printing money) to finance securitized loans to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which would expose the government to the risk of loan losses. Cost carrying money, which could be given to qualified enterprises, would avoid this risk . The usage fee attached to the money could on average be less than credit card commissions, and be sufficient to redeem the money after a year. In this way cost-carrying money becomes self-liquidating.
