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Thread ID: 102213	2009-08-11 17:26:00	Local Scrip	SurferJoe46 (51)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
800191	2009-08-11 17:26:00	A small excerpt: Last popularized during the Great Depression, scrip, or locally created stand-ins for U . S . currency, is making a comeback . Pittsboro, population 2,500, is one of a handful of communities that launched its own money in recent months . It reports an avalanche of calls from other communities that have lost faith in the global financial system . "The Plenty is not going to get siphoned off to Wall Street, or Washington, or make a stop in Bentonville on its way to China," said B . J . Lawson, a software entrepreneur who is president of the board of the Plenty cooperative . "It gives us self-reliance . " Over the last two decades, a few communities have created their own cash in an effort to preserve local ties or businesses . These whimsically named bills -- such as the "BerkShare" or the "Cheer" -- can be spent at neighborhood merchants, who then can use them at other local shops or, should they choose to, trade them in for dollars or other goods . In Mesa, Ariz . , a city of 450,000 east of Phoenix, the motive has been purely financial . The city has no property tax and relies almost exclusively on its sales tax for revenue . Receipts plummeted 12 . 5% in the last quarter of 2008 . Johann Zietsman, director of the city's Arts Center, noticed that only 30% to 40% of seats were selling as people tightened their belts . Thus Mesa Bucks were born . Shoppers who spend money at stores in the city limits can bring their receipts to the Arts Center and receive a percentage of the sales tax they paid as Bucks . Right now the currency can only be spent at the Arts Center and city museums, but officials are talking with two malls about distributing them and believe some local merchants will accept Bucks . The reason? To keep the paper trail back to the Fed non-existent and that way the taxes and such cannot be extracted from the local economy . The results? The Feds lose $ and the local economies prosper without the yoke and burden of US spending in foreign markets, pumped up by US Greenbacks . . latimes . com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scrip-money11-2009aug11,0,4104789 . story" target="_blank">www . latimes . com	SurferJoe46 (51)
800192	2009-08-13 13:08:00	We have even more localised scrip here - it only works in one kind of board game :( It's a pity - I won a bundle off a small girl whose mind was not on the game. Even worse, her mother made me take all my winnings out of the mattress and put them back in the game box.	R2x1 (4628)
800193	2009-08-13 13:20:00	You continue to amaze, R2x1, beautiful.	zqwerty (97)
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