Wednesday, February 07, 2007

German local money

1 comment:

John Powers said...

I find alternative currencies a great idea. At least they are very thought provoking.

I love where I live, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Loving Pittsburgh is somewhat inexplicable, but I'm not alone. Jim Russell has a blog Burgh Diaspora. Part of what what makes this scheme important in Magdeburg is so many young people are leaving and the community is declining, something the collapse of the Steel industry in Pittsburgh that weighs heavily here. Russell addresses ways to make the Pittsburgh Diaspora useful to Pittsburgh. And something that makes his blog good reading is that he looks at the issues of Diaspora's more generally.

Not mentioned in the article about local money is how that money might be a way for people in the Diaspora to still contribute to home. So those that have left to relatively more affluent settings might commit to spending a certain amount of their buying power in "home currencies." I can envision these money products being useful for Diaspora communities wanting to encourage economic growth at home.